European Union policies on Hong Kong

Mr Etienne Reuter, the Head of the Office of the European Commission in Hong Kong, was the Foundation's guest speaker on 22 January 1998. This is a summary of his remarks.

There are over 50,000 European Union (EU) citizens in Hong Kong and the EU has very large business interests here. Therefore it was natural, Mr Reuter said, that the EU should wish to establish a presence here. Such presence would serve to comfort Hong Kong people as to the EU's support for the continuation of their system and their autonomy. And it would also protect European interests in the territory. The European Commission established an office in Hong Kong at the end of 1993 to serve as a tool for its policies vis-a-vis Hong Kong. The EU's main objective is to support actively the "one country, two systems" concept and to develop relations between the EU and Hong Kong.

The Office helped to maintain a European focus on events in Hong Kong and Asia. The tendency was for Europeans to be absorbed in events nearer to home. Europe had worked for the demise of communism in neighbouring states to the east, and the return of these states to democracy and the market economy. It was gratifying that this work had been so successful; now the EU had to deal with the consequences in terms of the application of these states for membership of the EU. This, and more recently monetary union, tended to make Europeans eurocentric.

It was also the case, Mr Reuter felt, that Britain had never until its final years shown much interest in getting Europe involved in Hong Kong's affairs. Chris Patten had been the first to do this. And Mr Reuter himself had worked to include wording in documents of the EU Council of Ministers supportive of Hong Kong and the two systems principle and democratic elections, in which last he took a keen personal interest. The EU had also exchanged notes with the US on developments in Hong Kong.

At a more pragmatic level, the objective was to develop Hong Kong-EU relations in such a way as to enable Hong Kong to assert its autonomy. For example, the EU sought to reinforce Hong Kong's status as a separate customs territory, and to cooperate with it in international forums such as the WTO. He hoped that later there would be more specific links on trade and economic cooperation, including perhaps investor protection agreements. There should also be more cooperation between the universities of Hong Kong and their European counterparts. At present, although many Hong Kong people went to school in Britain, at the university level most students went to the US. There were 6,000 students from China in EU universities, but 60,000 in the US. This was a trend with implications that deserved consideration.

Mr Reuter expressed strong interest in Hong Kong's political scene, in the development of its democracy and civil liberties. However, he found some things puzzling. Why was voter registration such a failure? Why were the political parties absent from the process, content just to criticise the government? Being a European, he did not find the current proportional representation in geographical constituencies objectionable; indeed, he saw the former first-past-the-post system as far from ideal. The functional constituencies of course were a different matter and it was understandable that some Members of the European Parliament saw here a parallel with the regime of Mussolini. In any event, he was confident that the elections would be operated fairly. Mr Reuter did not think that the EU would send official monitors, but of course Europe would be observing the elections closely; he did not expect vote-rigging such as might be expected in some other places to which EU observers had been sent, such as Bosnia or Yemen.

Mr Reuter supposed that the apathy Hong Kong people showed over politics was a hallmark of a basically egotistical mode of life. People looked after their families and themselves, but did not think much of society. This could be seen also in the way people threw their litter carelessly about. Perhaps also, they felt that they had no chance to change their government. The Civil Service was currently bearing the brunt of the people's discontent: people realised that the Emperor could not be changed, and so vented their feelings on the eunochs and the mandarins.

On China, Mr Reuter hoped that as a world power, China would shoulder its share of global responsibilities, for example, in managing problems such as pollution, public health, drugs, whether through the United Nations or bilateral cooperation. He hoped that China could be engaged in the international framework of cooperation. China should become a member of the WTO.

On visas, Mr Reuter noted that the Hong Kong Government had been lobbying for visa-free entry for SAR passport-holders, but felt that this would be extremely difficult. A more practical objective for Hong Kong would be to seek a multiple entry visa procedure, perhaps similar to that used by the US. Faster processing of visa applications should also be achievable. Lobbying effort should be in this direction. Now that Britain held the Presidency of the EU, this was a good time to take the matter up.

Mr Reuter felt cultural cooperation was a neglected aspect of the Europe-Asia relationship. The focus should not be exclusively on business. Television programming was an area where US products dominated in Asia, partly because European programmes, in view of their small domestic markets, were expensive. Perhaps there could be some subsidy from the European side. Contributing to English teaching in Hong Kong was another area of possible expansion. He had a concern about the standard of English in Hong Kong. It was a shame that the recent initiative to launch mother tongue teaching in schools had been so badly handled in public relations terms. If there were at the same time a big push to improve the standard of English teaching the policy was a desirable one. A bigger investment in education was needed if Hong Kong was to maintain its position and develop the potential of its citizens.

The above summary does not necessarily represent the views of the Hong Kong Democratic Foundation.