President Ma Ying-jeou met on the morning of March 31 with a delegation from the European Parliament (EP). He thanked his visitors for the friendly support they have given Taiwan, and briefed them on the state of ties between Taiwan and European Union (EU).
Commenting first on this past March 22 terrorist attacks in the Belgian capital of Brussels, President Ma offered condolences for the dead and injured. He also told the visitors that on the day of the attacks he promptly condemned the violence on behalf of the government and people of the ROC, and offered sympathy and condolences to the victims and their family members.
Regarding the friendly support shown to Taiwan by the EP, President Ma noted that over 130 EP parliamentarians—some 20% of the 751 EP members—have joined the EP-Taiwan Friendship Group, and have played an important role in relations between Taiwan and Europe. From 2009 to 2015, the EP passed ten resolutions friendly to Taiwan. Those resolutions supported our participation in the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the granting of visa-free entry to holders of ROC passports, and the signing of an economic cooperation agreement between Taiwan and the EU. They also praised the positive developments in cross-strait relations, commended the East and South China Sea Peace Initiatives, and recommended that the European Commission urge the EU to enter into negotiations with Taiwan regarding bilateral agreements on investment protection and market access. These are all historically unprecedented developments.
The president mentioned that last September he participated in his first videoconference between Taiwan and EP members at the invitation of EP-Taiwan Friendship Group Chairman Werner Langen. The videoconference featured in-depth discussion on a broad range of topics, including lessons that the European experience holds for Taiwan, Taiwan's relations with the EU and mainland China, and regional security in East Asia.
Turning to the topic of Taiwan-EU relations, the president noted that the EU granted ROC passport holders visa-free entry to countries in the Schengen area in January 2011. "That was a key breakthrough," said the president, adding that ROC nationals are now allowed visa-free entry to 69 European countries, territories, and overseas protectorates and dependencies. Today, 164 nations and areas throughout the world provide visa-free courtesies or landing visas to ROC nationals, up from 54 when he took office in 2008, an increase of over three-fold. In recent years, bilateral and people-to-people ties between Taiwan and the EU have grown continuously. Over the past seven-plus years, Taiwan has signed 97 official agreements and MOUs with the EU and individual European nations covering matters such as science, technology, education, customs duties, telecommunications, judicial assistance, and youth working holidays. These agreements show that Taiwan-EU relations have reached new heights.
Regarding economic and trade ties between Taiwan and the EU, the president remarked that the EU is currently Taiwan's fifth-largest trading partner, while Taiwan is the EU's seventh-largest trading partner in Asia and 18th-largest in the world. Two-way investments are also booming, amounting to US$46.4 billion in 2015. In addition, European companies are the biggest source of foreign direct investment in Taiwan, totaling US$34.4 billion as of the end of this past January. These facts clearly show that bilateral economic and trade ties are quite close. In 2013, the German multinational Merck Group located its New Business R&D and Application Lab in Taiwan, the first lab of its type in Asia. In 2014, the UK high-tech firm ARM established a CPU Design Center in Taiwan, also the first such center in Asia. Many well-known Taiwanese companies have also invested in Europe. Examples include ACER, AU Optronics, Delta Electronics, Evergreen Marine Corp., Giant, and the Hon Hai/Foxconn Technology Group. L'Hotel de Chin (LDC) Hotels & Resorts Group has invested in tourist hotels in Italy. Cathay Life Insurance established a real estate investment company in the UK that has invested £400 million to date. Such facts demonstrate the very close nature of economic, trade, and investment ties between Taiwan and the EU.
The president further pointed out that Taiwan's formal admission in 2015 to the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) has made it much more convenient for Taiwan's small and medium enterprises to do business there. The EEN has over 23,000 European member companies, and Taiwanese firms can operate via their close-knit business networks throughout Europe to obtain proprietary information and high-quality and suitably tailored professional advisory and business matching services. That allows Taiwanese firms to connect with their counterparts in the EU and further develop the 500-million-strong EU marketplace. Such an approach makes a very positive contribution to the upgrading of Taiwanese industry.
In order to promote trade liberalization and regional economic integration, said the president, Taiwan has been working continuously to negotiate and sign free trade agreements with its trading partners. After signing the Cross-Straits Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with mainland China in 2010, Taiwan signed a Bilateral Investment Arrangement with Japan in September of 2011, and then in 2013 signed economic cooperation agreements with New Zealand and Singapore, respectively. It was also in 2013 that Taiwan and the United States resumed talks under the bilateral Trade and Investment Framework Agreement. This has all been undertaken with an eye to enhancing economic and trade ties with Taiwan's main trading partners.
President Ma stated that Taiwan has also been actively seeking to enter into a bilateral investment agreement with the EU. With the support of a number of EP parliamentarians, the EP in October of 2013 passed a resolution calling on the European Commission to launch negotiations with Taiwan on investment protection and market access agreements. In 2014 and 2015, EP members friendly to Taiwan continued speaking out and issuing letters calling on the EU to enter into negotiations with Taiwan, and breakthrough progress was achieved last October when the European Commission issued a paper entitled "Trade for all: Towards a more responsible trade and investment policy," in which the Commission expressly states its intention to explore launching negotiations on an investment agreement with Taiwan. Hopefully, the president said, the EP will continue pushing for the EU to enter into talks with Taiwan on a bilateral investment agreement as soon as possible. Such an agreement, he stated, would be highly complementary to the ECFA.
Regarding cross-strait relations, President Ma said that since taking office in 2008 he has actively sought to improve cross-strait relations, achieving considerable success. Over the past seven-plus years, Taiwan has sought under the framework of the ROC Constitution to maintain the status quo of "no unification, no independence, and no use of force" in the Taiwan Strait, and to seek peaceful cross-strait relations in line with the 1992 Consensus—whereby each side acknowledges the existence of "one China" but maintains its own interpretation of what that means. The two sides have signed 23 agreements, and the ministers in charge of cross-strait affairs from each side have met seven times, addressing each other using their official titles during the meetings. Cumulative tourist arrivals from the mainland have also topped 18 million, and 120 regularly scheduled cross-strait flights operate daily. These developments show that the two sides have established a solid foundation for mutual trust.
It was the establishment of this strong cross-strait trust, said the president, that made it possible for a meeting, predicated on the principles of equality and dignity, to take place in Singapore on November 7 of last year between himself and mainland Chinese leader Xi Jinping (習近平). The two sides exchanged views on how to consolidate peace in the Taiwan Strait, maintain the cross-strait status quo, and ensure the continued peaceful development of cross-strait relations under the 1992 Consensus. This clearly shows, the president remarked, that the Taiwan Strait has been transformed from a flashpoint of conflict into an avenue of peace.
Speaking on what the ROC has done to promote regional peace, President Ma stated that Europe's handling of disputes in the North Sea during the 1960s inspired him in 2012 to put forward the East China Sea Peace Initiative, which is based on the principle that "although sovereignty over national territory cannot be compromised, natural resources can be shared." Then in 2013 Taiwan signed a fisheries agreement with Japan that resolved a 40-year fisheries dispute. And Taiwan extended the concepts of the East China Sea Peace Initiative to the South China Sea in May of 2015 when it issued the South China Sea Peace Initiative to urge all parties to resolve disputes peacefully through negotiations. In November of that same year, Taiwan and the Philippines signed the Agreement Concerning the Facilitation of Cooperation on Law Enforcement in Fisheries Matters in order to further safeguard the lives and property of Taiwanese fishermen.
This past January 28, said the president, he visited Taiping Island (also known as Itu Aba), a part of the Spratly Islands, to thank the personnel stationed there for their hard work and sacrifices, and also to issue a South China Sea Peace Initiative Roadmap calling for "cooperation, not conflict," "sharing, not monopolization," "pragmatism, not intransigence," and "shelving of disputes, comprehensive planning, and zonal development" as a feasible path toward peace in the South China Sea. The goal, he stated, is to make the South China Sea "a sea of peace and cooperation," and to create Peace in the Three Seas by taking what's been accomplished in the Taiwan Strait and applying it to the East and South China Seas.
The delegation was led by Vice-Chair Pál Csaky of the EP Committee on Petitions, and also included EP members Maria Grapini, Hannu Takkula, and Tiziana Beghin.