EU Parliament Adopts Resolution Seeking Review Of Pakistan’s GSP+ Status Over Blasphemy Laws
The European Parliament has passed a resolution seeking a review of Pakistan’s GSP Plus (GSP+) status, over blasphemy laws that it says are discriminatory towards minorities and violate fundamental rights.
Introduced by Renew Europe, a liberal, pro-European political group of the European Parliament, the resolution was adopted with a majority of 681 votes against six.
The resolution accuses Pakistan of violating the conditions of its Generalised Scheme of Preferences Plus status.
The GSP+ is a special part of the GSP scheme that comes with additional trade incentives for developing countries already benefitting from GSP. However, the GSP+ status requires the country to prove that it has had progress on the implementation of 27 international core conventions.
The resolution was introduced in light of the events surrounding Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP)’s violent protests seeking expulsion of French ambassador from the country. A European parliamentarian Charlie Weimers, while addressing the session of the parliament, said that Europe should not reward Pakistan’s ‘mob justice targeting Christians and its Prime Minister relativizing the holocaust’.
This is definately a good step by EU parliment. I am waiting for them to pass similar sresolutions against Israel for apartheid, forceful eviction of Palestinian families from their homes, brutilization of men, women and children by the IDF and settlers on occupied land, genocidal bombing of Gaza etc etc.