Vincent Piket, head of European Union’s office in Hong Kong and Macau, said the government must explore the motives behind the independence campaign
STUART.LAU@SCMP.COM
UPDATED : Thursday, 28 April, 2016, 7:08pm
Vincent Piket, head of Office of the European Union to Hong Kong and Macao. Photo: SCMP
Hong Kong officials should look into why some people are campaigning for the city’s independence from China, the European Union’s top envoy to the city said on Thursday .
“This is a new political force. We are waiting to see the Legislative Council election results in September,” said Vincent Piket, head of European Union’s office in Hong Kong and Macau.
“I look at it as an outsider and believe ... the government should examine what motivates people to say that.”
But Piket stressed: “The Basic Law exists within the [People’s Republic of China]. That is very, very clear.”
Addressing local media on Thursday, Piket also defended the EU’s scathing annual report, released last week, which described the case of the five booksellers who went missing late last year and later surfaced on the mainland as “the most serious challenge” to the governing principle since the city’s return to Chinese sovereignty.
The EU also urged Beijing to restore the trust placed by the city’s residents and the international community in the “one country, two systems” formula in the aftermath of the saga.
Beijing “strongly opposes” the European Union making what it called irresponsible accusations about Hong Kong affairs and warned foreign governments not to interfere in the city’s affairs.
The Hong Kong government also warned foreign governments not to interfere in the city’s affairs, saying “one country, two systems” had worked smoothly since 1997.
Piket, who assumed his post here in 2012,said it was legitimate for the EU to call on Beijing and the Hong Kong government to resume the political reform process as it had a stake in the city.
“We are not interfering in the internal affairs of Hong Kong,” he said.
The Beijing-decreed package for electing the chief executive by universal suffrage in 2017 was rejected by the Legislative Council in June last year.
But Piket would not say what particular evidence the EU had to support the assertion that Lee Po, one of the missing booksellers, seemed to “have been abducted” to the mainland.
Lee, a British passport holder who vanished after he was seen at a warehouse in Chai Wan on December 30 surfaced later on the mainland. He was handed to Hong Kong authorities at the Lok Ma Chau border crossing last month.
Lee stuck to his story that he had voluntarily gone to the mainland to assist in an investigation involving a colleague, Gui Minhai, who also disappeared and later reappeared on the mainland.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1939573/eu-envoy-urges-hk-officials-investigate-reasons-driving-independence
