This is the first ever proposal for a stand-alone investment agreement since foreign direct investment became the exclusive competence of the EU under the Lisbon Treaty in December 2009. An EU-China investment agreement would streamline the existing bilateral investment protection agreements between China and most EU member states into a single, coherent text.
The international trade committee's resolution calls for an agreement that covers investment protection as well as market access. The agreement should address the main obstacles such as tariffs and non-tariff barriers, discrimination against foreign companies, better access to justice and improved protection of intellectual property rights etc. It should also include an effective corporate social responsibility clause and binding social and environmental clauses as part of a fully-fledged sustainable development agenda, and any agreement should include a dispute settlement mechanism.