Lawmakers from Sweden support Taiwan’s WHO bid

• By Liu Tzu-hsuan / Staff reporter

Swedish lawmakers have voiced support for Taiwan’s participation in the WHO and called on other EU members to do the same.

“The WHO needs Taiwan more than Taiwan needs WHO,” Swedish-Taiwanese parliamentary friendship group head Boriana Aberg told a seminar, the Taipei Mission in Sweden said on Wednesday.

The seminar was held by the Swedish-Taiwanese Parliamentary Association at the Riksdag to exchange opinions on Taiwan’s participation in the WHO, the Taiwan office said.

Nearly 20 Swedish parliamentarians and parliamentary administrative staff from the country’s four major political parties attended, it said.

As Russia and other authoritarian countries are increasingly threatening democracies around the world, EU countries must take a clear stand on supporting Taiwan’s participation in the WHO and other international organizations, Swedish lawmaker Joar Forssell said.

The gesture would demonstrate their emphasis on human rights and their support for like-minded countries, Forssell added.

With a sound health insurance and public health system, Taiwan would bring valuable experiences if it joined the WHO, Karolinska Institutet Department of Global Public Health associate professor Birger Forsberg said.

Taipei has been blocked from participating in WHO events due to Beijing’s oppression, said Henrik Lars Barva, political editor of the Swedish-language Nya Wermlands-Tidningen.

With the Ukraine-Russian war ongoing, democratic countries should step up their efforts to support Taiwan as a demonstration of the free world’s firm support for democracy, Barva added.

Excluding Taiwan from the WHO due to political reasons runs counter to the organization’s constitution, which says that “the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition,” Taiwanese Representative to Sweden Gu Ruey-sheng (谷瑞生) said.

The nation demonstrated its ability to make substantial contributions to the international health system during the COVID-19 pandemic, Gu said.

Gu thanked the EU and the Swedish government for their long-term support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in the WHO.

The association is one of the most active groups in the Riksdag, making 22 statements and proposing 12 motions to support Taiwan last year, the mission said.

Seventeen Swedish lawmakers visited Taiwan last year and the parliament is to send a delegation to Taiwan to attend the presidential inauguration ceremony next month, it added.