Strasbourg, 19/05/2006 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday, the EP adopted (66 votes to 21 plus one abstention) a resolution by the EPP-ED, ALDE, Greens/EFA, IND/DEM, and UEN Groups calling on the director general of the World Health Organisation (WHO) to authorise Taiwan to play an active part in the technical activities and events organised by the relevant WHO regional office and to include the Centre for Disease Control Taiwan as a member of the global early warning and response network to counter epidemics. It is unfair to continue excluding over twenty million people from the world health community, all the more as, in the current context of there being a high risk of various infectious diseases (such as avian flu or SARS) spreading, the EP states. The resolution also calls on China to examine the possibility of granting Taiwan observer status at the WHO, or at least at the World Health Assembly, its most important decision-making body.
The debate turned to the fact, as some MEPS pointed out, that Taiwan would gain political recognition if such decisions were taken. Legally speaking, Taiwan cannot be part of the WHO, French Socialist Martine Roure noted, while Dutch Liberal Jan Mulder pressed for the matter to be “depoliticised”. Marcin Libicki (UEN, Poland) stressed that “we should not submit to China's diktat”, and Luxembourg Christian Democrat Astrid Lulling said: “Taiwan is a democratic country that respects human rights, while China is not democratic and does not respect such rights, and Hong-Kong respects these rights but is not democratic”.