Philippines: The EU must not compromise on its values and withdraw trade preferences

The Renew Europe Group in the European Parliament calls for immediate release of all prisoners, who have been detained by the authorities in Philippines on politically motivated charges and expresses concern with the rapidly worsening human rights situation in the country.

The measures taken by the Duterte regime to fight the pandemic should protect human rights, not undermine it. In an urgency resolution today debated in plenary and initiated by our political group, MEPs also denounce the government’s practice of “red-tagging” activists, journalists, and critics, thus accusing them of being communists and terrorists.

The decision of the Government of the Philippines to withdraw from the Rome Statute is very worrying and we encourage the ICC to continue the inquiry into the allegations of crimes against humanity. The resolutions calls on the European Commission to set clear, public, time bound benchmarks for the Philippines to comply with its human rights obligations under the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP+ scheme).

Renew Europe MEP, Svenja Hahn (FDP, Germany), who led the negotiations on the urgency resolution on the situation in Philippines, said:

“If there is no substantial improvement and willingness from the Philippines government to meet their human rights obligations under the GSP, we expect the Commission to withdraw the trade preferences. The European Parliament will not accept any more inactivity and we will not compromise on our European values.”