When the Philippines began the second round of talks over a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) with the European Union (EU) last February 2025, concerns were raised about potential negative impacts on vulnerable sectors and the country’s ongoing human rights issues.
“A major driving force of these talks is the desire of the EU to secure access and control over critical minerals to serve its strategic interests on energy and manufacturing, said Joseph Purugganan, Co-Director of the policy research group Focus on the Global South. He expressed concern that this agenda would likely lead the Philippines to pursue increased extractions of critical minerals, which could harm the environment and the rights of indigenous communities.
The 2019 EU trade and sustainability impact assessment report cited that a future Free Trade Agreement (FTA) could negatively affect Filipinos, particularly in sectors like textiles, apparel, and electronics. The report highlighted concerns over human rights, including the potential rise in child labour and impacts on women’s rights. It noted that expanding the manufacturing sector could lead to increased land conversion, which could affect indigenous peoples’ access to their lands and increase land disputes.
Human rights remains a contentious issue, says Trade Justice Pilipinas, noting that the proposed free trade agreement (FTA) could “harm vulnerable sectors of the Philippine economy as the country does not have a clear industrial policy to protect and develop its own economy.”
As pointed out by Action Network Human Rights Philippines (AMP) in a previously published briefing note, earlier FTAs contained human rights clauses but the mechanism has not proven to be effective in improving the human rights situation of EU’s partner countries.
AMP cited the EU-Vietnam FTA (EVFTA) from 2020 as an example of the flawed mechanism: Despite the Vietnamese government’s systemic suppression of individuals and organizations advocating for environmental protection, labor and land rights, and exposing the socio-economic impacts of infrastructure and investment projects in 2023, which violated the EVFTA, the EU Commission restrained from using the human rights clause under the FTA to influence the situation. The Philippines could face similar shortcomings if enforceable protective measures are not given attention in the ongoing negotiations.
In February 2025, the International Federation for Human Rights and the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights called on the EU Commission in a complaint to its trade department to hold Vietnam accountable for its alleged crackdown on human rights defenders working on sustainable development clauses of the EVFTA that is violating the trade agreement.
Local human rights groups in the Philippines observed that the ongoing FTA talks resumed without a new human rights impact assessment that could give guidance on how and when the negotiations should continue with respect to the current human rights.
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