July 20, 2015
No. 129
A delegation led by Mr. Dieter-Lebrecht Koch, Member of the European Parliament and Vice-Chair of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, is visiting the Republic of China from July 19 to 24, 2015.
The delegation will have an audience with President Ma Ying-jeou, and call at the Legislative Yuan, the Mainland Affairs Council, the Council of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Administration, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, the Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Executive Yuan’s InvesTaiwan Service Center, and the European Chamber of Commerce Taiwan. Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Vanessa Yea-Ping Shih will host a banquet in their honor. In addition, the delegation will visit National Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, the National Palace Museum, Lungshan Temple, and Kinmen, which will better acquaint them with local culture. The trip also aims to give the delegation members a clearer understanding of current political and economic trends in Taiwan, as well as recent developments in cross-strait relations, which will help open up new avenues for further cooperative exchanges between the EU and Taiwan.
Relations with the EP, which is composed of 751 members representing over 500 million people in the 28 EU member countries, have become an important component in the ROC’s diplomatic work in Europe. Over the past seven years, the EP has adopted nine resolutions favorable to Taiwan, relating to such issues as the Schengen visa waivers that the EU granted ROC passport holders, Taiwan’s meaningful participation in such international organizations as the International Civil Aviation Organization, the East China Sea Peace Initiative, the signing of a Taiwan-EU bilateral investment agreement, and the strengthening of other forms of bilateral cooperation. These resolutions encourage the EU as a whole, as well as its individual member states, to strengthen their bilateral interactions with Taiwan. (E)