As French President Emmanuel Macron says he wants to "piss off" the unvaccinated people in his country to push them into getting Covid-19 vaccines, the head of the European Parliament’s Human Rights Committee tells FRANCE 24 that while she is unconvinced by the phrasing, "it's really important to have a higher rate of vaccination in Europe and elsewhere, to guarantee that we don't go back to lockdowns".
Belgian Socialists & Democrats group MEP Maria Arena says she's "not sure that Macron's strategy is the right way [of convincing people] for the moment".
Arena also explains why she wants to see the European Commission back a waiver of intellectual property rights on Covid-19 vaccines, saying: "There's no point in having 100 percent of people in the West vaccinated and only 7 percent in Africa. It doesn't work. We've seen the result with Omicron."
On the issue of irregular migrant crossings between France and England – which totalled at least 28,000 in 2021 – Arena says both London and Paris are taking the wrong approach, because "they have the same view on migration: to build walls around Europe and around the UK. And I think it is not at all the right way to think about migration […] It is important to have a policy based not on guaranteeing a lower number of migrants, but having a policy that protects people."
Meanwhile, as the new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz talks about the EU making a new push for closer economic ties with China, Arena tells FRANCE 24 this must be conditional on China cleaning up its human rights record – citing the repression of Uighurs and Hong Kong democracy activists: "We have to consider that China is a very big player in the economy. We can't say we aren't going to work with China. But if we and China are interested in having more ties, as Europeans we must say this comes with conditions, and that condition is human rights."
Produced by Isabelle Romero, Georgina Robertson, Yi Song, Céline Schmitt and Perrine Desplats
