Stronger cooperation on COVID assistance stressed at EU-India People's Summit

Brussels, May 5 (AP) Experts, policymakers and practitioners from Europe and India stressed on creating a collaboration roadmap on Covid assistance during an ongoing eight-day virtual summit.

The EU-India People’s Summit, which kickstarted on May 1, came ahead of the annual European Union-India Diplomatic Summit scheduled on May 8.

The diplomatic summit was intended to take place in Porto, Portugal, but will now be held virtually due to the global surge in COVID-cases.

COVID-relief, vaccine and oxygen exports as well as a trade deal are expected to be core topics at the diplomatic summit, sources said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced that he will join the summit briefly via video call.

"The diplomatic summit is closed to the public, and insights from those fighting COVID at the ground level can therefore not be brought to the virtual table. In this regard, experts, policymakers and practitioners from Europe and India came together for an eight-day People's Summit from May 1 to 8 to create a collaboration roadmap on assistance post- and during COVID," a press release issued by the organisers of the EU-India People’s Summit said on Wednesday.

The summit is organised by a group of institutions led by the Foundation London Story, Indian Solidarity Finland, The Liberal Indians - France, in partnership with the wider Indian diaspora.

"In the past weeks, these diaspora groups have balanced the summit planning with mobilising funds for COVID-relief in India and have set up fundraisers and campaigns to ensure oxygen supply to fellow Indians in their home country," the release said.

Explaining the objectives of the summit, Dr Ritumbra Manuvie from the London Story Foundation said, “As diasporic Indians with families and friends in India we are distraught by the apocalyptic situation back home.

"Through the People’s Summit, which we organised through voluntary work within a frame of only four weeks, we want to send a strong message of solidarity to the people of India. We have neither abandoned our home country nor have we stopped thinking about the welfare of the people of India.” While 15 member states of the EU, the UK and the US have already opened assistance through civil protection, members of the European Parliament and member states’ parliaments addressing the EU-India People's Summit stress the need for further assistance to India in the light of the COVID pandemic.

High Commissioner for Foreign Relations and Trade of the European Parliament Alviina Alametsa in her address at the summit emphasised India's COVAX assistance programme and reiterated a need for assistance to India in this time of need.

Deputy Chairman of Germany’s India Delegation Omid Nouripour said, “We have always benefitted from India’s immense capacity in medical goods manufacturing. It’s time to us to say Thank You and for Germany and the European countries to help with everything we have at our disposal.” Both Alametsa and Nouripour highlighted that the summit responds to the urgent need to people-to-people dialogue between India and Europe.

Jayati Ghosh, UN-appointed economic adviser on international COVID relief, in an interview with the organizers argued against “vaccine nationalism and vaccine passports”, stating that “14 rich countries have been grabbing vaccines from Day 1,” and the “supply is only artificially limited.” Anand Grover, former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, emphasised that the legal system and respect for human rights are inextricably linked with an effective COVID-response.

Alena Kahle, organiser of the Summit from Germany, said, “Through the appeals made by the speakers at the Summit, we are writing a rights-oriented People’s Blueprint for EU-India collaboration that we will introduce to the European Parliament.” Other speakers at the summit include Chair of European-Indian Business Council Soeren Gade, Danish Ambassador to India Freddy Savvne, and Members of the Dutch Parliament and the European Parliament.

Also expressing concerns over the COVID situation and the need for cooperative and collaborative global action were former Chairman of the National Security Advisory Board and climate expert Ambassador Shyam Saran, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy Dr Joseph Cannataci, prominent social scientists and economists including Christophe Jaffrelot, Mukulika Banarjee and Marie-Caroline Saglio-Yatzimirsky.

Prominent civil society activists who have addressed the summit include Prof Apoorvanand, Nodeep Kaur, Kamayani Swami, Navkiran Natt, Gautam Mody, Nikita Sud, Amir Ullah Khan, Pratik Sinha and N Ram. PTI SCY SCY SCY