Exclusive | European lawmakers to visit Taiwan next week to meet with Taipei officials
- Trip comes as EU-China relations fray and Taipei lobbies for a bilateral investment agreement with the EU
- An EU trade representative, though, says ‘there is no convincing economic rationale’ for such a deal
In a move sure to provoke Beijing, a delegation from the European Parliament will travel to Taiwan next week, as lawmakers push for closer ties with Taipei.
The small party plans to travel early next week, according to multiple sources familiar with the schedule, taking high-level meetings with senior Taiwanese government officials.
Leading the delegation will be Raphael Glucksmann, a French MEP and outspoken critic of China who was sanctioned by Beijing in March in a dramatic tit-for-tat escalation in bilateral tensions.
The trip comes at a time of heightened tension in cross-strait relations and a delicate moment for the European Union’s broader ties with China. Parliamentary staff have been sworn to secrecy about the details because of “security risks”, even receiving emails asking them not to discuss the trip until after it has taken place.
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Last week, Beijing lashed out at European lawmakers after they adopted the parliament’s first-ever report on Taiwan, which urged the European Commission to initiate talks on a bilateral investment deal; rename and upgrade the EU’s office in Taipei; and support observer status for Taiwan at international agencies including the World Health Organization and Interpol.
Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu is to address a gathering of legislators critical of China, organised by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, in Rome on Friday, ahead of the G20 leaders summit there over the weekend.
In Taipei, the lawmakers are to meet with officials from Taiwan’s Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They will also hold talks with Digital Minister Audrey Tang and attend meetings at the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan’s parliament.
On November 3, deputy foreign minister Harry Tseng is to host a dinner “in honour of the delegation of the European Parliament’s Special Committee on Foreign Interference in All Democratic Processes”, according to an invitation seen by the South China Morning Post.
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While some of those travelling are members of the committee – Glucksmann is its chair – others are not. Some committee members declined invitations to join the delegation, while others who have previously expressed support for Taiwan are joining a delegation to the US instead.
Alongside Glucksmann, a member of the Socialist and Democratic (S&D) grouping in the European Parliament, will be Petras Austrevicius, a Lithuanian member of the Renew Europe group, Italian MEP Marco Dreosto from the Identity and Democracy Group, Czech MEP Marketa Gregorova from the Greens, former Lithuanian prime minister Andrius Kubilius, now an EPP MEP, Georgios Kyrtsos a Greek EPP member, and Andreas Schieder, an Austrian S&D MEP.
The trip comes three weeks after a group of French senators visited Taipei, and a Taiwanese business delegation toured the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Slovakia last week.
In a statement addressing the upcoming trip, the Chinese mission to the EU said that the one-China principle was the “political foundation for the establishment and development of Sino-European relations”.
“Adherence to the one-China principle requires that [the EU lawmakers] should not pursue any form of official dealings with the Taiwanese authorities,” the statement, posted to Twitter, continued.
At the same time, Taipei has lobbied behind the scenes to drum up support for its ambitions. Topping its wish list is a bilateral investment agreement (BIA) with the EU, which would be seen as a boost to its political legitimacy in the West.
Taiwan’s ambassador in Brussels, Ming-Yen Tsai, told the Post that the main impediment to talks was the EU’s investment pact with China, the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) – debate on which is currently stalled after Beijing imposed sanctions on some MEPs.
Citing statements by Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, and other “decision-makers within the EU system”, Tsai said, “they all regard Taiwan as an important partner. But when we touch upon a formal negotiation between our two sides for a BIA, it seems that they still have expectations for the CAI”.
“They are still in the process [of making] a final decision about whether or not to have a BIA with Taiwan. Our proposal or argument is clear: Taiwan’s BIA is not supposed to become hostage to the CAI. The European Commission should decouple these two things.”
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For its part, the EU officially denies any enthusiasm for such an investment deal.
“There is no economic interest in having an investment agreement with Taiwan,” said Miriam Garcia Ferrer, a spokeswoman in the EU‘s directorate-general for trade office.
“To start with, there is no convincing economic rationale for negotiating an investment agreement with Taiwan. The EU is already the largest source of foreign direct investment in Taiwan.”
“The main issues that business would want to see resolved would not be addressed by a BIA, for example, [sanitary and phytosanitary] and agri-food market access; automotive standards,” she added. “Conversely, Taiwanese companies are free to invest in Europe, and in fact have been investing increasingly in recent months.”
Economists said that the political symbolism of any EU-Taiwan deal would outstrip the economic benefits for both sides.
“The optics of the discussions around an investment agreement are just as important as the content, if not more significant,” said Nick Marro, global trade lead at the Economist Intelligence Unit in Hong Kong.
Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis, added that while “there are growing economic ties between Taiwan and the EU due to the growing importance of semiconductors but also Taiwan’s goals to transition to green”, any talk of a bilateral investment deal would be “totally political”.
But Zsuzsa Ferenczy, a non-resident fellow at the Taiwan NextGen Foundation think tank in Taipei, contended that for the EU to decide whether it needs a BIA, “an impact assessment must be conducted”.
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“This has not yet been done in the case of Taiwan. As long as no real assessment is done, saying that a BIA is not needed is simply a political statement detached from the economic reality,” Ferenczy said.
And Reinhard Buetikofer, the head of the European Parliament‘s China delegation, said that the directorate-general for trade was “making lame excuses” if it thought there was no convincing argument to begin preparatory work.
“We do have a strong interest in making Taiwan a link in a resilient supply chain network with like-minded partners. Not convincing? We also want to express our political support for Taiwan’s democracy against PRC threats,” Buetikofer said.
“Not convincing? Some DG Trade officials may want the EU to cave in under Chinese pressure. But that is not the EU policy.”
