EU rallies Canada, allies to help WHO after Trump temporarily withdraws funding

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The European Union is planning a major pledging conference early next month to help fill the World Health Organization’s funding gaps, and it expects Canada to play a key role.

Brice de Schietere, the EU’s acting ambassador to Canada, says the event was being planned before U.S. President Donald Trump announced last week he would pause WHO funding because of concerns that it mismanaged the early outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

De Schietere told The Canadian Press that no one wants to politicize the May 4 event but the effort to find a vaccine and fund the research needed to end the global pandemic means raising money to help the UN agency is more important than ever.

De Schietere, the charge d’affaires at the EU delegation’s Ottawa office, said the Canada-EU trade deal will play a key role in helping the post-pandemic economic recovery, as well as keeping essential medical supply chains open.

And he said Canada and the EU are co-operating closely to control the spread of misinformation about the pandemic, which he said has resulted in more than 120 fake news stories that are aimed at undermining the European response to the crisis.

De Schietere steered clear of mentioning Trump directly, but he emphasized that Canada is the EU’s closest partner in the world right now, and that their transatlantic alliance is focused on bolstering the multilateral trade, health and political organizations to battle the pandemic.

“It is precisely in times like these that we need to have more solidarity. Global co-operation is more critical than ever — and the responses we have had, notably from Canada, have always been very positive in this direction,” said de Schietere.

“At the present time, we are not in that state of mind of making any kind of finger-pointing or politicization of the issue. We have regretted, and this has been expressed on several occasions by EU leaders, the decision coming from the United States to suspend the funding to the WHO,” he added.

“For us, what’s important is to have global co-operation and solidarity and we need the multilateral institutions to do it. It is the only effective and viable option we can take to win this battle.”

 

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