Earlier this week, the Communist Party of China announced retaliatory sanctions against a number of individuals and entities in the European Union, sparking an uproar. On Wednesday (March 24), more than 70 percent of members of the European Parliament took a stand to veto the China-EU Comprehensive Investment Agreement (CIA), which took nearly seven years to reach, and announced the agreement’s brief collapse.
The South China Morning Post reported on March 24 that three of the four largest political parties in the EU have made it clear that they will not be able to support the China-EU Comprehensive Investment Agreement (CAI) if the Chinese Communist Party does not lift sanctions. And the European People’s Party (EPP), the largest party group in the European Parliament, has urged an end to support for the agreement.
Manfred Weber, leader of the EPP caucus, said that the Chinese Communist Party is trying to intimidate European parliamentarians by sanctioning them because of the EU’s condemnation of the Chinese government’s human rights violations against the Uighurs in Xinjiang.
EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis told the Financial Times of London that retaliatory sanctions by the Chinese Communist Party are “regrettable and unacceptable” and that the future of the China-Europe Comprehensive Investment Agreement “will depend on how the situation evolves. “.
Kathleen van Brempt, MEP, said bluntly that the “lifting of sanctions” is a prerequisite for the EU and the CCP to continue negotiations on the agreement, “We will not be threatened, we will not be silenced We will not be threatened, we will not be silenced.”
Former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, a member of the European Parliament, said that the Communist Party’s sanctions “killed” the agreement.
The European People’s Party (EPP) has joined other EU parties in opposing the China-EU Comprehensive Investment Agreement, which means that 499 MEPs, or more than 70 percent of the total number of seats in the European Parliament (705), will vote against it.
On Tuesday, the European Parliament has cancelled a deliberative session on the EU-China investment agreement that was scheduled to take place on the same day.
Beijing-based pro-Communist overseas Chinese media outlet Dovetail News quoted an EU source familiar with the internal dynamics as predicting that this will be a major topic for some Time to come, as “generally speaking, as long as our elected officials are subject to sanctions by third countries, we cannot seek any agreement with the countries concerned. any agreement with the country in question.”
The report also said that the Chinese Communist Party misjudged the atmosphere in Europe and that the China-Europe agreement is being “put on hold” until the political situation improves.
On Monday, the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada made a rare simultaneous move to impose sanctions on Beijing over the Communist Party’s human rights violations against the Uighur people in Xinjiang. The EU, Britain and Canada announced sanctions against four Chinese officials and one Chinese entity, banning them from entering the country and freezing their foreign assets.
On the same day, the Chinese Communist Party quickly retaliated by announcing sanctions against 10 individuals in Europe, including European parliamentarians, academics and four entities. The move sparked an even greater wave of opposition from the European Union, prompting at least eight European countries to summon their CCP ambassadors to their countries to express their displeasure.
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