Initially supported by at least 560 MEPs from five of the largest groups in the 751-strong European Parliament, voting on a damning resolution against India’s contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was postponed on Wednesday till March in a move that many members criticised as a prime example of the European Union “capitulating and crumbling” in the face of pressure from India’s diplomatic lobby.
In a biting speech during the debate in Brussels on Wednesday, Scott Ainslie of the European Free Alliance, popularly known as the Greens party, condemned the deferment of the vote saying he was “heartbroken” at the “appalling decision taken today”, which he said was the result of the EU prioritising “yet another trade summit with India over our commitment to protecting human rights”.
“We’ve refused to take a stand on this Islamophobic policy which could drive 200 million Muslims, nearly half the EU’s population, towards statelessness, incarceration or deportation,” Ainslie said.
The Greens’ MEP pointed out that all major groups in the EU Parliament, including the European People’s Party (EPP) – the largest group in Europe with 184 elected members, had “co-signed” the resolution but “today have chosen to postpone the vote yet again”.Four of the largest parties in the EU Parliament – EPP, Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D), the Renew Europe Group and the European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) – were signatories to the joint resolution against India. But in yesterday’s debate, one parliamentarian each from these groups came out in open support of the CAA, going as far as terming the new law an example of “positive discrimination”.Nina Gill, an Indian-origin S&D parliamentarian from the United Kingdom, said: “This is an act of positive discrimination aimed at integration process of refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, who have already been in India for many years, recognising the high level of discrimination faced by non-Muslims in those countries. It is not seeking to exclude any of the other groups who do not fall within this category.”
Welcoming the postponement of the vote, Gill said the resolution was full of factual inaccuracies. She regretted that her concerns about the persecution of minorities in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh had “fallen on deaf ears”. “Had this house paid a little bit of more attention to those gross violations as we do today to CAA, India may not have had to take these actions.”
Gill said it was the correct decision to wait on the vote “until the Supreme Court has deliberated on this”.
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Diplomacy