President Chen Shui-bian on February 7 met with Hans Van Baalen, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Lower House of Parliament of the Netherlands. President Chen extended his welcome and gratitude to Mr. Van Baalen on behalf of the government and people of the ROC (Taiwan). He also congratulated Mr. Van Baalen on being elected chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee on December 20 last year.
President Chen said that Mr. Van Baalen made a motion in December 2003 opposing the lifting of the European Union arms embargo against China. The motion was passed unanimously in the Dutch Parliament, which was no small feat. This motion was highly influential when the Netherlands held the revolving presidency of the EU in the following year, and it helped to convince other EU nations not to lift the arms embargo against China.
President Chen expressed his gratitude to Mr. Van Baalen for his efforts in supporting observer status for Taiwan in the World Health Organization. In October 2005, the Dutch Parliament voted in favor of this motion by a vote of 99 to 51. In addition, during his tenure as deputy president of Liberal International (LI), Mr. Van Baalen expressed strong support and friendship for Taiwan, for which President Chen expressed his appreciation. When a Taiwan delegation encountered obstacles in its efforts to attend a previous annual conference of LI in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia, Mr. Van Baalen, as deputy president of the organization, emerged to provide assistance and ensure that the Taiwan delegation was able to attend. President Chen once again expressed his gratitude to Mr. Van Baalen for his efforts in this regard.
President Chen said he is pleased that commercial cooperation between Taiwan and the Netherlands has increased in recent years, adding that this is in part due to the efforts made by Mr. Van Baalen and the Netherlands representative office in Taiwan.
The president furthermore said that trade between the two countries reached US$6.6 billion last year, and that there is still room for more growth. The Netherlands is Taiwan's second largest trading partner in Europe. Meanwhile, the Netherlands had invested an aggregate US$8.88 billion in Taiwan as of the end of last year, ranking it first among all European countries.
President Chen said that he hopes this visit to Taiwan by Mr. Van Baalen will further strengthen substantive and friendly relations between the two countries. He expressed his hopes that Mr. Van Baalen will lend his assistance in encouraging the Dutch government to provide Taiwan tourists with visa-free courtesies. He also said he hopes that the motion passed by the Dutch Parliament supporting observer status for Taiwan in the WHO will become government policy there. Lastly, President Chen said he hopes Mr. Van Baalen will pave the way for the establishment of a Taiwan friendship delegation within the Dutch Parliament.
Mr. Van Baalen was accompanied by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Yang Tzu-pao to the Presidential Building to meet with President Chen. Presidential Office Deputy Secretary-General Liu Shyh-fang was also in attendance.