Excellencies, colleagues,

I have the honour of speaking on behalf of the European Union and its Member States.

In these dark hours when international law is being flouted before our eyes, our thoughts are with Ukraine and its people, with whom we stand in solidarity.

We congratulate the six members of the bureau of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body for their nomination: Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes, Mr Ahmed Soliman, Mr Kazuho Taguchi, Mr Roland Driece, Dr. Precious Matsoso, and Dr. Viroj Tangcharoensathien.

We thank you for your readiness and your commitment to serve on the bureau of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body. This body has been tasked by the Special Session of the World Health Assembly in a decision entitled “The World Together” “to draft and negotiate a WHO convention, agreement or other international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, with a view to adoption under Article 19, or under other provisions of the WHO Constitution as may be deemed appropriate by the INB”. This is an historic process and an historic opportunity.

The pandemic has caused immeasurable damage in terms of lives lost, economic distress and social upheaval. The EU and its Member States reconfirm their strong commitment to strengthen global health architecture, with an empowered and sustainably financed WHO in the central leadership role. We continue to work hard to support the development of a new ambitious, universal Pandemic Treaty, as stated in the Conclusions of the 24-25 June 2021 European Council.

This new Pandemic Treaty will enable us to address inequities in pandemic response and the shortcomings of the current legal framework highlighted by several reviews. Furthermore, it will allow us to adopt a whole of government approach to pandemic preparedness, that includes one health and provides for early development and equitable access to medical counter measures, data, benefit and sample sharing, to name a few. The principle of equity should guide the work, including through disability-sensitive and gender-responsive approaches.

We need to ensure compliance and coherence across the many different work streams, in particular the Working group on strengthening WHO preparedness and response to health emergencies (WGPR) and discussion on potential IHR amendments. It will be important to ensure complementarity, coherence and compatibility between the provisions of the new instrument and the IHR, including any possible amendments to it. We are facing an ambitious timeline and call for an inclusive process in developing this instrument - making sufficient time available for the INB to deliver on its mandate.

The EU continues to stand ready to engage constructively in further discussions on other ways of strengthening WHO, based on the recommendations of the independent expert bodies and Member States.

We look forward to working together with all of you in the development of the working draft to be submitted before the second meeting of the INB this summer. It is crucial that the bureau leads the identification of the substantive elements and the development of a working draft to present as a chairs’ proposal to INB in July, on the basis of extensive and inclusive intersessional consultations with Member States, with the help of technical expertise from the Secretariat. We are confident that the co-chairs will present a balanced draft, reflecting various views that will serve as a good basis to start negotiations.

The way ahead will not be easy, but we will go at it as “the world together”.

Thank you.