Pöttering to boycott Olympic opening ceremony

STRASBOURG: Parliament president Hans-Gert Pöttering has said he will boycott the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games next month in protest at the continued repressions in Tibet.

Pöttering said that the failure of talks between Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and the Beijing authorities to lead to any improvement in the human rights situation in Tibet had prompted his decision.

“Given that these talks have to date proved inconclusive, I have decided not to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. But I very much hope that the dialogue between the envoys of the Dalai Lama and the Chinese authorities will soon be pursued in a constructive way aimed at achieving results,” the German MEP said in a statement issued on Wednesday as parliament debated relations with China.

Pöttering’s announcement came just hours after French president Nicolas Sarkozy – who is also president of the EU for the next six months – said he would attend the opening ceremony, despite initial suggestions that he would not go.

EU foreign policy chief Benita Ferrero-Waldner, speaking in the plenary debate, said that the Olympic Games were “an opportunity for China and the world to come closer together and we wish them luck with the Games”, a view that was at odds with many MEPs.

Daniel Cohn-Bendit, co-leader of the Greens, was the most passionate in denouncing the EU’s “appalling” double standards on China.

“This is Black Wednesday for the parliament. Everyone tells me things will be better after the Games, but where is the evidence for that?” he asked.

“The harder the Chinese authorities are, the more we give in, and the more we give the more remote becomes the possibility that anything will change.”

“For Sarkozy, his visit means nothing more than a contract to sell nuclear power stations to China.”

Edward McMillan-Scott, a long-time opponent of the regime in Beijing, had harsh words for France’s Europe minister, Jean-Pierre Jouyet, representing the presidency during the debate.

“Europe has capitulated,” he said, citing a French newspaper headline. “China is a brutal regime; we should keep politics out of sport and we should keep Sarkozy out of Beijing.”

Richard Evans, a UK Socialist, whose own national leader Gordon Brown will attend the closing ceremony of the Games to take the Olympic flame back to London, which will host the next Games, was even more frank.

“It will be to Europe’s shame if our leaders go to Beijing and shake hands with the Chinese authorities. It will give them a credibility they do not deserve.”

Earlier on Wednesday, Cohn-Bendit hosted a press conference when he accused Sarkozy of capitulating to the Chinese authorities.

“There were bigger protests in London than in Paris during the passage of the Olympic flame, but it was not UK investments in China that were attacked,” he said.

“Why was that? Because the campaign in China has been politically motivated from the start, targeting Sarkozy as the weakest link.”

“Sarkozy said he would be tough on China over human rights, but he has followed the same path as his predecessor, ignoring human rights in favour of lucrative commercial contracts with China.”

Both Ferrero-Waldner and Jouyet responded to MEPs criticisms by stressing that they believed that maintaining diplomatic relations with China was the only way Europe could hope to have any influence over the issue of Tibet, human rights or any other area. 

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