EU Explanation of Vote – UN General Assembly 1st Committee: Developments in the field of information and telecommunications in the context of international security
- Final as delivered -
Mr. Chair,
I have the honour to speak on behalf of the Member States of the European Union.
The Candidate Countries North Macedonia*, Montenegro*, Albania*, Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova, the country of the Stabilisation and Association Process and potential candidate Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the EFTA countries Iceland and Norway, as well as San Marino align themselves with this statement.
We would like to provide an explanation of our vote against the resolutions L.23 “Developments in the field of information and telecommunications in the context of international security” tabled by the Russian Federation.
With regard to the products related to ICT in front of us, let me reiterate our full and unified support not only to the draft decision L.54 tabled by Singapore welcoming the Open Ended Working Group’s annual progress report but also to the work of the OEWG more generally. We welcome the roadmap provided by this progress report for the OEWG’s next sessions and look forward to further advancing the framework for responsible state behaviour in this context.
Against this background and consistently with our support to the OEWG Chair, we cannot support the draft resolution L.23 put forward by the Russian Federation.
Firstly, we have concerns that this draft resolution may not offer added value compared to the aforementioned draft decision and the OEWG annual progress report, and that it may undermine the OEWG Chair as well as the authority of the draft decision which endorses the annual progress report.
Additionally, and most importantly, it appears that the preambular section of the draft resolution provides only an imbalanced selection of consensus language contained in resolution 76/19 and the consensus reports on this topic. For example, PP4 does not fully reflect the agreed language from resolution 76/19 regarding the possible further development of norms over time This draft resolution also incorporates concepts such as "community of shared future for humankind" in PP2 or "information space" in PP7 which, although discussed, were never agreed by all delegations. We consider that such concepts should not be used to alter, or replace, concepts agreed by consensus in previous outcome documents.
The Members States of the EU and aligning countries will therefore vote against this draft resolution and call on other states to do so as well.
* North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Albania continue to be part of the Stabilisation and Association Process.