As the European Union Parliament is all set to discuss resolutions on Citizenship Amendment Act, the EU Foreign Office has said that it doesn’t represent the official position and called New Delhi a key partner.
Several groups of Members of European Parliament (MEP) have tabled six resolutions against the controversial act, saying the enactment of the new law marked a dangerous shift in India’s citizenship regime.
The Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament (S&D), Group of the European People”s Party (Christian Democrats) (PPE), Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance (Verts/ALE), European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR), Renew Europe Group (Renew) and European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) Group have tabled six resolutions against the CAA with some even mentioning the Kashmir issue.
EU Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Virginie Battu-Henriksson, told WION, “Opinions expressed by the European Parliament and its Members do not represent the official position of the European Union.”
The official position of EU is that Kashmir is a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan while no comments on CAA are known yet.
The spokesperson was aware that the CAA law is being assessed by India’s Supreme Court for its constitutionality, explaining, “It is important to recall that these texts are only drafts tabled by various political groups in the European Parliament”.
Backing Brussels-New Delhi partnership, the spokesperson said, “India is a key partner for the EU to address global challenges and to jointly promote the rules based multilateral order.”
More than 550 of 751 members of the EU Parliament are part of the six groups that have tabled the resolutions. The resolutions are set to be debated in the European Parliament in Brussels on January 29 and will be voted the day after.
This comes ahead of the 15th India-EU summit that will take place on March 13, 2020 for which Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to Brussels.
Reactions have also come from EU members. Speaking on the resolutions, French diplomatic sources said, “For France, a founding member of the European Union, the Citizenship Amendment Act is India’s internal political matter.”
“European Parliament is an institution independent of the member states and the European Commission,” they said.
The EU mission in Delhi earlier in the day said, “The European Parliament is an independent institution, sovereign in the organization of its work and in its deliberations.”
“The text referred to are draft resolution by political groups in the EP,” it said.
According to the text of one of the resolutions, the MEPs urge Indian authorities to “engage constructively” with those protesting against the law and consider their demands to repeal the “discriminatory CAA”.
“The CAA marks a dangerous shift in the way citizenship will be determined in India and is set to create the largest statelessness crisis in the world and cause immense human suffering,” GUE/NGL resolution says.
“Instead of addressing the concerns, offering corrective action, calling for security forces to act with restraint and ensuring accountability, many government leaders have been engaging in efforts to discredit, rebuke and threaten the protesters,” it added.
Government sources in India said there shouldn’t be such actions that call into question the rights and authority of democratically elected legislatures in other regions of the world.
“CAA is a matter that is entirely internal to India. This legislation has been adopted by due process and through democratic means after a public debate in Parliament,” government sources said.
“We hope sponsors and supporters of the draft will engage with us to get a full and accurate assessment of the facts before they proceed further,” they said.
“As fellow democracies, EU Parliament shouldn’t take actions that call into question the rights&authority of democratically elected legislatures in other regions of the world,” sources added.
Source: dnaindia.com