Building a European diplomatic approach. Việt Nam as a pivotal relationship[La constitution d’une approche diplomatique européenne. Le Việt Nam comme relation pivot]

Between the 1970s and the 1990s, Euro-Vietnamese relations offered a convincing example of the diversity of European tools being formed and consolidated in external relations. In this respect, the Socialist Republic of Việt Nam catalyzed many aspects of the Community's approach to international relations, whether in diplomacy, trade or development aid. During the Cold War, the Community oscillated between an objectified strategic particularity and a politicization of its approach to Southeast Asia, which not only placed it within a homogeneous "Western field", but also set a precedent in its history. From the 1990s onwards, the rise of globalization and the founding of the European Union helped diversify EU policies and de facto European economic diplomacy towards Việt Nam. In an "Asia Pacific" identified as the lung of the world economy, Hà Nội was gradually thought of as a relay partner, in a region where an absent Europe had to perfect its embryonic common foreign and security policy.