THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT REQUESTS THE COUNCIL AND THE COMMISSION TO TRY FOR BIGGER COHERENCE AND STRENGTH IN THEIR POLICY TOWARDS PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA.

DECLARATION OF OLIVIER DUPUIS, MEMBER OF EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE TRANSNATIONAL RADICAL PARTY.

Strasbourg-Brussels, May 15, 1998. The adoption of this urgent resolution on the situation in Tibet and on the hunger strike initiative undertaken by some Tibetan activists in New Delhi demonstrates first of all that the EP does not accept that the Commission and the Council take the direction opposite to its indications - numerous and precise - concerning the human rights in China and question of Tibet.

Particularly, the EP "deplores the fact that the Council and the Commission haven't followed its request to appoint a special representative of the Union for Tibet" and "considers the initiatives undertaken by EU to achieve the liberation of Panchen Lama to be insufficient."

The EP also requests that the EU mobilizes itself in order that United Nations proceed to "nominate a Special Rapporteur on Tibet", to include the question of Tibet in the agenda of the next session of General Assebly, and in order that the Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, receives the Dalai Lama as the first step of the mediation between the Chinese government and the Tibetan government in exile, as requested by 1.300 Members of Parliaments from the entire world who signed the appeal promoted by the Transnational Radical Party.

Declaration of Olivier Dupuis: "in the moment when more and more western governments give up acting with determination to defend and promote the democracy and the rule of law in China, limitating themselves at most - but it is not even the case for Europe - to bargain over the expulsion of some political prisoner, in the moment when Europe undertakes again the policy of bad memories that had adopted regarding the Soviet Union, it is particularly important that an institution like the European Parliament reiterates its deep attachment to the questions of democracy in China and the freedom in Tibet denouncing the Council and the Commission."

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