Dr. Riina Kionka, the newly appointed EU ambassador, began serving in Pakistan. She plays the national song on the trumpet in honor of the nation’s 75th Independence Day and to mark 60 years of ties between the EU and Pakistan.
This original approach to commemorate August 14 was shared on Thursday through a special social media campaign.
According to a news statement from the EU mission, the union is dedicated to fostering the development of a stable, democratic, and multicultural nation that respects human rights and realizes the full economic potential of all of its residents.
The Strategic Engagement Plan (SEP) signed in 2019 serves as the framework for cooperation between the EU and Pakistan. Peace and security, democracy, the rule of law, human rights, migration, as well as other fields including energy, climate change, research, and technology, are all areas of collaboration under the SEP.
Pakistan has been granted preferential access to the European single market under the GSP+ scheme by the EU since 2014. EU countries are one of Pakistan’s main trade partners, in order to help its sustainable economic development and inclusion into the global economy. When Ambassador Kionka met with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, he was informed that Pakistan placed great priority on its bilateral ties with EU members as well as its relations with the EU as a whole.
The PM expressed confidence in upcoming visits by EU parliamentary delegations as well as the upcoming rounds of political and security dialogues that will take place under the EU-Pakistan Strategic Engagement Plan, recalling his recent phone conversations with the EU Council President Charles Michel and the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen.
He expressed his gratitude to the existing GSP Plus program for strengthening the commercial connections between Pakistan and the EU and expressed his hope that Pakistan would remain a part of the program after 2023.
