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European MPs’ motion calls for Hong Kong to withdraw extradition bill and start democratic reform
- The motion, to be debated in European Parliament on Thursday, also seeks EU-wide ban on supplying weapons to the city’s police
- It condemns interference by China in Hong Kong and asks Beijing to uphold the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration
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More than a tenth of the European Parliament’s 751 members have come together to call for the Hong Kong government to formally withdraw its extradition bill and introduce democratic reforms, and demand an EU-wide ban on supplying weapons to the city’s police.
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The motion, which will be “urgently” debated on Thursday, was tabled by 85 members on Wednesday, just a day after the parliament approved the nomination of Ursula von der Leyen as president of the European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm.
The cross-party, multinational motion “strongly condemns the constant and increasing interference by China in Hong Kong’s internal affairs, as well as the recent assertion by China that the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984 is a historic document and hence is no longer valid”.
“The Chinese government is bound by the Joint Declaration to uphold Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy and its rights and freedoms,” it said.
If the European Parliament passes the motion when it votes on it on Thursday, the parliament’s president will be instructed to forward the recommendation to the European Council – the 28 leaders of the EU member states – as well as the European Commission and the governments of Hong Kong and Beijing.
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Some high-profile signatories included the European Parliament’s vice-president Fabio Massimo Castaldo; David McAllister, chair of the parliament’s foreign affairs committee; Lithuania’s ex-prime minister Andrius Kubilius; and Andrus Ansip, former vice-president of the European Commission.
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