Mr. President,

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union.

The Candidate Countries the Republic of North Macedonia[*], Montenegro^*, Serbia^* and Albania^*, the country of the Stabilisation and Association Process and potential candidate Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the EFTA country Norway, member of the European Economic Area as well as Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova and Georgia align themselves with this statement.

The EU and its Member States align themselves with the joint statement just delivered by Australia. In addition, the EU would like to express its position on violations of international law by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The EU strongly condemns the launches of ballistic missiles, which the DPRK has conducted in unprecedented numbers since the beginning of this year. The DPRK’s continued pursuit of its unlawful weapons systems, including launches of new types of missiles. The EU further condemns the renewed activities in several nuclear sites in the DPRK, including construction work at the Punggye-ri test site. These actions pose a threat to regional stability, international peace and security.

The EU calls on the DPRK to cease destabilising actions, abide by its international obligations under multiple UN Security Council Resolutions and re-engage in a credible and meaningful dialogue with the international community. The international community will never accept the DPRK as a nuclear weapon state under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The path that the DPRK must take is clear and, there are no alternatives: the DPRK must sign and ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), return to full compliance with its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as a non-nuclear weapon state, comply fully with the IAEA Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement, bring into force the Additional Protocol to that agreement and eliminate all its nuclear weapons, any other weapons of mass destruction and abandon existing nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner.

Until the DPRK complies with its obligations under UN Security Council Resolutions, the EU will continue to implement strict sanctions and we encourage all UN Members to do the same. The DPRK’s blatant violations of UN Security Council resolutions through the development of its nuclear and ballistic missile technology and any other WMD programmes in breach of international law divert resources from its own people, prevent its economic development and undermine the welfare of its people. The EU urges the DPRK to engage in meaningful discussions with all relevant parties to build a basis for sustainable peace and security and to take steps aimed at pursuing complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The EU stands ready to support any meaningful diplomatic process.

We fully respect rule 9 of the Rules of Procedure, which stipulates that the Presidency of the Conference on Disarmament rotate among all its members in alphabetical order. Given the profound repeated violations of its non-proliferation and disarmament obligations, we have decided to express our strong concern through a lower level of representation by all EU MS during the DPRK’s Presidency until 24 June 2022.

I thank you.

[*] The Republic of North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Albania continue to be part of the Stabilisation and Association Process.