MFA Press Statement: Visit by Members of the European Parliament from the Friends of Singapore Group, 30 March to 1 April 2016

[Photo: MFA]

MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS PRESS STATEMENT

VISIT BY MEMBERS OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT FROM THE FRIENDS OF SINGAPORE GROUP

30 MARCH TO 1 APRIL 2016

      A delegation of five Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) from the Friends of Singapore (FOS) group, led by the Chair of the FOS, Mr Sorin Moisă, is visiting Singapore from 30 March to 1 April 2016.  (A write-up of the FOS group is attached below.)

       The MEPs called on Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr Vivian Balakrishnan this morning.  They reaffirmed the excellent relations between Singapore and the European Union (EU), and discussed political and economic developments in the EU.  Both sides also looked forward to the expeditious ratification of the EU-Singapore Free Trade Agreement.  After the meeting, Minister Balakrishnan and the MEPs officially launched the FOS group at an event held at MFA.  The event was attended by Members of Parliament from the Singapore-Europe Regional Parliamentary Group, Ambassadors from EU Member States and senior officials from Singapore.  (The transcript of Minister Balakrishnan’s remarks is attached below.)

       During their visit, the MEPs will also call on Minister for Trade and Industry (Trade) Mr Lim Hng Kiang, be hosted to lunch by Senior Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Transport Mrs Josephine Teo, and call on Deputy Speaker of Parliament Mr Charles Chong.  They will also be hosted by Member of Parliament Ms Foo Mee Har at West Coast GRC where they will observe a Meet-the-People session.  In addition, they will visit PSA, the National Gallery Singapore, and the Institute for Policy Studies.

MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

SINGAPORE

31 MARCH 2016

Friends of Singapore group in the European Parliament

           The Friends of Singapore (FOS) group in the European Parliament was initiated by Singapore in 2015, with Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Sorin Moisă (Socialists and Democrats, Romania) as its first Chair.  The main objective of the informal grouping is to promote closer ties between Singapore and the European Union (EU), particularly inter-parliamentary ties.  The FOS currently comprises of more than 20 MEPs from the major political groupings in the European Parliament and represents a wide range of EU member states.  The group will be officially launched during the inaugural visit by an FOS delegation led by Mr Moisă to Singapore from 30 March to 1 April 2016. 

2        The establishment of the FOS is timely, given the European Parliament’s increasingly prominent role in the EU’s decision-making processes.  The EU’s Treaty of Lisbon of 2009 granted the European Parliament new law-making powers and put it on an equal footing with the EU’s Council of Ministers (i.e. the Member States), as well as new legislative powers.

3             The FOS will help strengthen the political, economic and people-to-people ties between Singapore and the EU.  It will build on the exchanges between Singapore and the European Parliament in recent years.  This includes visits by the Delegation for relations with Southeast Asia and ASEAN (DASE) in May 2012 and March 2015, as well as the International Trade Committee (INTA) in October 2014 and April 2015.  Singaporean leaders have also regularly visited the European Parliament.  Then-Minister for Foreign Affairs and Law K Shanmugam visited the European Parliament in Strasbourg in September 2013, while then-Minister in Prime Minister’s Office, Second Minister for Foreign Affairs and Second Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Grace Fu met with various MEPs in Brussels in July 2014.

4             Following its official launch, the FOS intends to organise activities that would raise awareness of Singapore in the European Parliament.  These activities could include future visits to Singapore, meetings with visiting Singaporean leaders and officials, cultural events as well as seminars on topics of mutual interest.

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[Edited] Transcript of Remarks by Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr Vivian Balakrishnan at the launch of the Friends of Singapore in the European Parliament on 31 March 2016

Your Excellency Mr Sorin Moisă, the Chair of the Friends of Singapore group in the European Parliament,

My colleagues from the Singapore Parliament,

Your Excellency Dr Michael Pulch, Ambassador and Head of the Delegation of the European Union (EU),

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

1                 Let me at the outset, reiterate to all our European friends, our condolences and our shock and horror at the events in Brussels just last week.  There is absolutely no justification for such heinous acts, and Singapore unequivocally condemns the people who perpetrated such crimes.  These barbaric acts are a painful reminder of the serious threat and the global scope of terrorism. This is something we all confront, and have to confront collectively.

2                 On a somewhat more pleasant note, I am glad that Singapore’s connections with Europe are longstanding, multifaceted and healthy.  Europeans have been a part of the Singapore story since Sir Stamford Raffles landed in Singapore in 1819.  Indeed, if you have time to walk around, and I know you haven’t had time yet, you will see that the European legacy is still alive and well and visible.  If you look at the architectural heritage exemplified by our buildings such as our National Gallery, which I hope you will get a chance to visit, as well as the Victoria Concert Hall, you will see that the European imprint is still there.  The European, and I suppose in particular the British imprint on our education system and our legal code and our judicial processes, on our parliament, our arts and entertainment scene, and other areas is also clearly visible.  Today, there are some 60,000 Europeans who call Singapore their home and they continue to be valued members of our society.  Conversely, Europe continues to be one of Singaporeans’ favourite tourist destinations.  In addition, there are thousands of Singaporeans who are pursuing their tertiary education in the United Kingdom and many other European countries.  So on a people-to-people level and on a historical basis our ties are robust and healthy.

3                 At the political level, Singapore and the EU see eye-to-eye on many global issues, including the importance of multilateralism and a rules-based international order, and including, as I alluded to earlier, our fight against terrorism and extremism.  We’ve had a good exchange of high-level visits last year that helped us reaffirm the close political ties between Singapore and the EU.  High Representative Federica Mogherini attended the Shangri-La Dialogue in May 2015, while European Commission Vice-President Jyrki Katainen visited us in September 2015.  From the European Parliament, we welcomed two visits from the Delegation for relations with Southeast Asia and ASEAN as well as the International Trade Committee (INTA).  I am pleased to note that Mr Moisă himself was last in Singapore in March 2015, as part of the INTA visit and my predecessor, Minister K Shanmugam, also spoke at the European University Institute’s State of the Union Conference in Florence in May 2015.  These visits are important in helping us to build understanding across both sides, and we need to maintain the momentum of these exchanges.

4                 On the economic front, the ties between Europe and Singapore are equally compelling.  Singapore is by far the EU’s largest trading partner in ASEAN, accounting for more than 30 percent of total EU-ASEAN trade in goods, and over 50 percent of the trade in services.  When you appreciate how tiny Singapore is, these numbers are actually astounding.  We are also a significant market for European exports. Here is a little known fact that I wanted to emphasis once again: the EU actually enjoys an 11.3 billion euro trade surplus with Singapore – and I think this is one of the EU’s largest trade surpluses globally.  There are also more than 11,000 EU companies active in Singapore, many of them using Singapore as a base, as a portal or as an interface to the rest of Southeast Asia and beyond.  We have many EU companies’ regional headquarters based here.  Conversely, Singapore accounts for more than 90% of ASEAN’s total Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into Europe, and is the second largest Asian investor in Europe after Japan.  Again, if you think about the disparity in size between Singapore and Japan, for us to be the second largest Asian investor in Europe is truly remarkable.  The stock of Singapore’s FDI has increased more than eight-fold over the past decade, from about 6 billion euros in 2003 to more than 50 billion euros in 2013.  We believe there is potential for even more growth, and here I need to make my plug for the EU-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (EUSFTA) to be ratified.  It all makes compelling sense.

5                 The European Parliament, and in particular, the Friends of Singapore, which the five of you represent, will play a key role in bringing EU-Singapore ties to the next level.  As we know, the EU’s Lisbon Treaty of 2009 has put the European Parliament on the same footing as the EU’s Council of Ministers, and it now plays a critical role in the passage of all EU-level legislation as well as international agreements.  The Parliament’s responsibility in the EU’s relations with its external partners has also grown accordingly.  And as Friends of Singapore, we hope that you will help us to deepen the relationship between Singapore and the EU by enhancing mutual understanding, and indeed appreciation of the convergence of strategic interests between the EU and Singapore.  We hope that your group will also lend your voice to support the ratification of the EU-Singapore Free Trade Agreement.  As I’ve said earlier this will certainly help us fulfil the EU’s goal of increasing economic growth and job creation, especially for the people on the street, especially for young people in Europe and beyond.  And we also hope that there will eventually be an EU-ASEAN Comprehensive Air Transport Agreement which will help European airlines tap into ASEAN’s rapidly growing market for air travel to Europe.

6                 So I look forward to working with you, with the Friends of Singapore group, to further our cooperation in fields of mutual interest. Once again, let me bid a very warm welcome to our friends.  Singapore is hot and wet, so it is warm, but it’s not just in terms of the weather, but from the heart.  It now gives me great pleasure to invite Mr Sorin Moisă, Chair of the Friends of Singapore group, to address us.

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