Thank you, Chairperson.

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union and its Member States. The Candidate Country the Republic of North Macedonia[1], Montenegro and the EFTA country Norway, member of the European Economic Area, align themselves with this statement.

The EU and its Member States are committed to the promotion, protection and respect of human rights and labour rights, including freedom of association, of assembly and abolition of forced labour. We support the indispensable role played by the ILO in developing, promoting and supervising the application of international labour standards and of fundamental Conventions in particular.

We thank the ILO for its constant engagement in promoting labour rights in Myanmar. In this regard, we note the progress the country has made on the Decent Work Agenda in the last years, notably continuing the tripartite dialogue within the National Tripartite Dialogue Forum (NTDF), and holding the first meeting of the National Forced Labour Complaints Mechanism Committee in July this year, as well as advancing on expansion of social protection coverage.

We welcome the ratification by Myanmar of the Minimum Age Convention 138 in June 2020. We strongly urge Myanmar to continue the work on the ratification and implementation of remaining fundamental labour conventions.

We welcome the continued dialogue between the EU and its Member States and the Government on striving to improve labour rights in the country, particularly in this new COVID-19 reality. The EU and its Member States reconfirm their strong commitment to support Myanmar in this regard. We have recently held on 14 October joint 6th Human Rights Dialogue and will advance with our enhanced engagement under the Generalized Scheme of Preferences arrangement for Least Developed Countries ("Everything But Arms").

However, while noting the progress, we would like to express our deep concern over the following issues:

1. Cases of forced labour by the Myanmar armed forces (Tatmadaw) and non‑state actors are still being reported

In this regard, we underline that, national complaints mechanisms that is being established needs to be credible, effective and accessible even for the most vulnerable in conflict-affected areas, and developed in cooperation with the ILO and in consultation with social partners. Until then, it is imperative the ILO continues to receive new complaints and support the Government in processing complaints, to ensure the effectiveness of the complaints mechanism.

1. A key area of our attention is the labour law reform and freedom of association.

We welcome the advancement within Tripartite Technical Working Group on Labour Law Reform on Labour and Employer Organization Law and urge the Government to align the labour law reform with international labour standards. While the amendment of the Settlements of Labour Disputes Law was passed last June, we note that not all recommendations of the Direct Contacts Mission have been fully taken into account, notably relating to non-union collective bargaining in workplaces where trade unions exist. The rules to this law are still to be finalised. We also call for ensuring the rights of trade unions to peacefully exercise their freedom of association including by revising the Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Procession Law and defining the principles of freedom of association and freedom of assembly in the draft Labour and Employer Organization Law.

1. The third area of great concern is child labour.

We commend the National Committee on the Elimination of Child Labour for adopting in December 2019 the first five-year National Action Plan on the Elimination of Child Labour. We regret however that the Government still has not delivered a Plan towards elimination of child labour by 2025 in line with SDG 8.7 as previously committed to. Similarly the draft list determining the types of hazardous work prohibited for persons under 18 years of age has not yet been formalised. We urge the Government of Myanmar to adopt the list and to strengthen the capacity and expand the reach of labour inspectors to detect hazardous child labour, particularly in the informal economy. We also call on the Government to provide a definite timeline for amending section 359 of the 2008 Constitution, which basically exempts from the prohibition of forced labour.

In addition to the above concerns, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the EU calls on the Government of Myanmar to immediately grant full, unhindered and safe humanitarian access to all conflict-affected areas and to lift any internet and media restrictions, which prevents notably access to critical COVID-19 related information.

We also commend the role of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar for working towards justice, transparency and accountability and call upon all States, particularly the Government of Myanmar, and entities, including private corporations, to offer their full cooperation.

Chair, we would like to suggest a slight amendment to the amendment proposed by the Workers and change the word “speed up” in recital 42(a) and (c) into “step up”. We support the amendment by the Employers in recital (e).

Thank you, Chair.

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