On Monday, US President Donald Trump- who has already frozen US
funding for the WHO – wrote its director-general, Tedros Adhanom
Ghebreyesus, to lay out the charges and threaten to pull out.
Brussels: The European Union (EU) backed the World Health
Organisation and multilateral efforts to fight the coronavirus on
Tuesday after US President Donald Trump threatened to quit the
global agency.
“This is the time for solidarity, not the time for finger pointing
or for undermining multilateral cooperation,” European foreign
affairs spokeswoman Virginie Battu-Henriksson told reporters.
The EU has sponsored a motion at Tuesday’s session of the WHO’s
annual assembly to urge an “impartial, independent and
comprehensive evaluation” of the international response to the
pandemic.
And the spokeswoman said: “The European Union backs the WHO in
its efforts to contain and mitigate the COVID-19 outbreak and has
already provided additional funding to support these efforts.”
Not for the first time, this puts Brussels in opposition to
Washington, where Trump has accused the UN health agency of being
too close to China and of being slow to react to the COVID-19
outbreak.
On Monday, the US leader – who has already frozen US funding for
the WHO – wrote its director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus,
to lay out the charges and threaten to pull out.
“They’re a puppet of China, they’re China-centric to put it
nicer,” he explained.
Beijing has furiously denied the US allegations that it played
down the threat and Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated at the
World Health Assembly that his nation had been “transparent”
throughout the crisis.
Brussels is backing an independent inquiry into how the epidemic
erupted and spread, but has tried to lead an international,
multilateral response to the crisis and raise funds for vaccine
research.
On Monday, US President Donald Trump- who has already frozen US
funding for the WHO – wrote its director-general, Tedros Adhanom
Ghebreyesus, to lay out the charges and threaten to pull out.
Brussels: The European Union (EU) backed the World Health
Organisation and multilateral efforts to fight the coronavirus on
Tuesday after US President Donald Trump threatened to quit the
global agency.
“This is the time for solidarity, not the time for finger pointing
or for undermining multilateral cooperation,” European foreign
affairs spokeswoman Virginie Battu-Henriksson told reporters.
The EU has sponsored a motion at Tuesday’s session of the WHO’s
annual assembly to urge an “impartial, independent and
comprehensive evaluation” of the international response to the
pandemic.
And the spokeswoman said: “The European Union backs the WHO in
its efforts to contain and mitigate the COVID-19 outbreak and has
already provided additional funding to support these efforts.”
Not for the first time, this puts Brussels in opposition to
Washington, where Trump has accused the UN health agency of being
too close to China and of being slow to react to the COVID-19
outbreak.
On Monday, the US leader – who has already frozen US funding for
the WHO – wrote its director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus,
to lay out the charges and threaten to pull out.
“They’re a puppet of China, they’re China-centric to put it
nicer,” he explained.
Beijing has furiously denied the US allegations that it played
down the threat and Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated at the
World Health Assembly that his nation had been “transparent”
throughout the crisis.
Brussels is backing an independent inquiry into how the epidemic
erupted and spread, but has tried to lead an international,
multilateral response to the crisis and raise funds for vaccine
research.