European Commission for Genuine Autonomy for Tibet
Dharamsala, 19 September 2003: Ensuring genuine autonomy for Tibet by encouraging China and His Holiness the Dalai Lama to strengthen their ongoing contact through mutually acceptable solution would be one of their political priorities, said the European Commission yesterday.
In its policy paper on China, adopted on September 10, 2003, the European Commission suggested that the ongoing direct contacts between China and His Holiness the Dalai Lama should be encouraged to further strengthen the relation with a view to finding a mutually acceptable solution to the question of Tibet in the context of ensuring a genuine autonomy for this region.
Beijing will host the next EU-China summit on October 30, 2003 during which the EU is expected to take up a number of issues including the need for co-operation with the UN human rights mechanisms, freedom of expression, association and religion and minorities’ rights.
European Commission’s External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten said the paper takes stock of the many changes in Europe and China and the rest of the world since European Commission’s last policy paper on China in 2001.
“We have a major political and economic interest in China’s successful transition to a stable, prosperous and open country which fully embraces democracy, free market principles and the rule of law, and we will do our utmost to support this transition process,” Patten said
The policy paper contains a number of concrete proposals in the field of global governance as well as to increase the efficiency of EU-China human rights dialogue. This policy paper, which is being transmitted to the European Council and the European Parliament, updates the Commission’s communications on EU-China relations of 1998 and 2001.