The European Union has pledged its support for the World Health Organization (WHO), following President Donald Trump’s threats to permanently defund the United Nations agency over its mishandling of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.
A spokeswoman for the European Commission, Virginie Battu-Henriksson, said that global cooperation is “the only effective and viable option to win this battle” against the Wuhan virus.
“This is the time for solidarity. It is not the time for finger-pointing or undermining multilateral cooperation,” the EU spokeswoman added in comments reported by AP.
The pledge of support for the WHO from the bloc followed a proclamation from German Chancellor Angela Merkel that “the EU must act together, the nation-state has no chance if it acts on its own”.
The European Union urged all other nations to back the embattled UN agency after President Trump announced that he would be permanently cutting of American funding for the WHO unless the organisation makes “major substantive improvements within the next 30 days”.
In a letter addressed to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, President Trump wrote: “It is clear the repeated missteps by you and your organization in responding to the pandemic have been extremely costly for the world.”
“The only way forward for the World Health Organization is if it can actually demonstrate independence from China,” Trump concluded.
Nice try, Communist. But Americans aren't dumb enough to fall for your attempts at cheap PR and propaganda. We the People demand a deep-dive investigation into what the Communist Chinese regime knew and when it knew it–followed by full accountability. https://t.co/kG1UYQk2JF
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) May 18, 2020
The World Health Organization has consistently been accused of spouting Chinese communist propaganda since the outset of the pandemic, initially repeating China’s claims that there was no human transmission of the virus in January.
The WHO has also kowtowed to the communist regime in Beijing by refusing the entry of Taiwan into the organisation. The move has effectively cut off the independent nation from sharing information about the virus, despite it being believed to have conducted one of the most effective responses to the outbreak.
The European Union has been accused of bending the knee to the Chinese Communist Party during the pandemic, as well. A report from last month indicated that the bloc had rewritten a report on disinformation campaigns carried out by state actors during the pandemic, softening it after pressure from communist officials.
“The Chinese are already threatening with reactions if the report comes out,” wrote EU diplomat Lutz Güllner in a leaked email.
In its final version of the report, the EU removed any reference to the “global disinformation campaign” carried out by the CCP.
The European Union denied the accusation that it had altered its report as a result of Chinese pressure. However, one analyst wrote that EU diplomats were “self-censoring to appease the Chinese Communist Party” and that “appeasement will set a terrible precedent and encourage similar coercion in the future”.
CCP Tried to Pressure Germany Into Spouting China’s Coronavirus Propaganda https://t.co/47eYfs0dmy
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) April 28, 2020
Follow Kurt on Twitter at @KurtZindulka
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