On 24 May Taiwan’s Ambassador Remus Li-Kuo Chen, together with members of staff from Taiwan’s Representative Office and their families, attended the “Health for All, Taiwan can Help – the bid to support Taiwan’s entry into WHA” event held at the Place du Luxembourg in front of the European Parliament. The occasion was organized by Mr. Shan-Lin Lai, member of the Overseas Community Affairs Council, jointly with other members of the Taiwanese community in Belgium and Taiwan’s overseas students.
Federico Bartolozzi, Minister of the Republic of Paraguay to the EU; Georges Dallemagne, Member of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives and Co-President of the Belgium-Taiwan Friendship Group; Michael Gahler, Chair of the European Parliament’s Taiwan Friendship Group; Mikuláš Peksa, Member of the European Parliament (MEP); Charlie Weimers MEP, Ivan Štefanec MEP; Reinhard Bütikofer MEP; and Petras Auštrevičius MEP all attended the event and voiced their support in public for Taiwan’s international participation.
In his speech, Ambassador Chen began by thanking the Taiwanese community in Belgium for supporting the government’s pursuit of international participation with practical actions, and said that although the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared COVID-19 is no more a threaten to global public health, there are still gaps in international public health. Taiwan has not yet been invited to participate in the World Health Assembly (WHA) and that the current global health coverage is far from universal, he noted, before adding that the rights and interests of all Taiwanese should not be subject to outside political interference.
Echoing Ambassador Chen’s calls, the European politicians and representatives from Taiwan’s diplomatic allies in attendance also praised Taiwan’s contributions to international public health, and urged all democratic countries to join hands with Taiwan and work together to ensure Taiwan’s international participation to help achieve global health and well-being. Whether Taiwan can participate in the WHO is not only related to the interests of a single country, but also the interests of the entire international community.
More than 100 Taiwanese and Europeans from all walks of life attended the event to show their support, enthusiastically holding up banners and slogans to express the sincere appeal of 23.5 million Taiwanese people. We thank all of the politicians, ambassadors, Taiwanese communities and overseas students for coming out and expressing their full support for Taiwan’s participation in the WHO.
