Verbatim report of proceedings

Thursday, 18 July 2019 - Strasbourg

Situation in Hong Kong

  Neena Gill, on behalf of the S&D Group. – Madam President, the protests we’ve seen in the past weeks in Hong Kong are a really encouraging sign that the people of Hong Kong will not let their freedoms be abolished. The sheer scale is unprecedented, and the outcome of this crisis will be a turning point for Hong Kong’s position in China. If the protesters prevail, this will be a big win for freedom in Hong Kong. However, if Beijing wins, this will be a premature end to ‘one country, two systems’. You can rest assured that we will then see very many people being brought to trial under less than ideal conditions. So, the European Union must take a clear stance and support the freedoms in Hong Kong.

It’s really important that China is in global focus at the moment, with what’s going on in Hong Kong and its economy is slowing down, and what’s going on in Xinjiang. It’s really important, in the summits and the meetings that we have with China, that we stress the human rights issue. It’s really important that the High Representative – the current one and the incoming one – take this issue up.