British High Commission in Delhi also says the visit was not an official one.
NEW DELHI :The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) based in Brussels, Belgium, and the British High Commission in Delhi have stated that they were not involved, in any way, in the recent Kashmir visit of Members of European Parliament (MEPs) that was organised by Madi Sharma, a person of Indian origin and a member of the EESC.
Responding to The Sunday Guardian’s queries, David Gippini, the press officer of EESC, said that the EESC was not aware of this visit, which was neither organised nor funded by the EESC.
“Sharma’s visit to India is not an official mission authorised by the EESC and cannot be considered as a part of the EESC’s activities. As for permission, no permission was not necessary as the EESC was not involved in this undertaking,” Gippini told The Sunday Guardian.
Responding to a query by this newspaper on who appointed Sharma as a member of the EESC, Gippini said, “Sharma, like all other members of the EESC, was appointed by the government (in her case, the UK government) and her nomination was then approved by the Council of the European Union. Ms Sharma is a member of Employers’ Group in the EESC since 21 September 2002.”
Gippini thereby confirmed The Sunday Guardian’s story last week—‘Business broker’ has ‘close links’ to UK government—in which this newspaper had written that Sharma was nominated to the EESC by the UK government.
Gippini clearly said that the EESC—with 350 members from all EU member states—which he described as “a consultative body of the European Union that contributes to strengthening the democratic legitimacy and effectiveness of the European Union by enabling civil society organisations from the member states to express their views at the European level and plays a key role in the Union’s decision-making process”, “does not engage in image building exercises for governments and is independent from any government”.
An official with the UK cabinet office, on whose nomination Sharma became the member of EESC, told The Sunday Guardian that since Madi Sharma has been the member of the EESC since 2002, hence information relating to who from the UK government had nominated her is not readily available.
The Sunday Guardian had also reached out to the British High Commission in Delhi seeking their comments on the entire development. Responding to The Sunday Guardian’s queries, an official with the British High Commission, said, “The visit of the MEPs to India was not an official visit; MEPs travel in their private capacity and to speak for themselves. We were not involved in any capacity in the organisation of the unofficial visit.”
As reported earlier by this newspaper, when contacted for her response on the issue, Madi Sharma had blocked The Sunday Guardian’s numbers on all social media platforms.