President, Excellencies, 

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

The Candidate Countries North Macedonia*, Montenegro^*, Albania^*, Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina^* and Georgia align themselves with this statement.

We would like to begin by thanking Thailand for their able facilitation and strong leadership in this process. We also thank the other members of the core group – Brazil, France, Indonesia, Norway, Senegal, and South Africa - for their great efforts and engagement to reach agreement on this resolution.

As we collectively build a more robust global health architecture and look to better align our action, international support can be helpful as a complement to domestic efforts. Here, the EU and its Member States play their part in sustaining key Global Health Initiatives, while further encouraging their shift towards horizontal health system strengthening and country driven approaches in line with the Lusaka Agenda. 

The EU is co-hosting on 25 June in Brussels, the “Global Summit: Health & Prosperity through Immunisation” for the GAVI replenishment. Team Europe has been a key supporter of Gavi, the Global Fund, and other key Global Health Initiatives and programs such as The Pandemic Fund, The Global Financing Facility, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, the WHO Universal Health Coverage Partnership and the UNFPA Supplies Partnership. 

We also want to highlight that in response to the call from African leaders to produce 60% of vaccines in Africa by 2040, the Team Europe Initiative on Manufacturing and Access to Vaccines, Medicines and Health Technologies in Africa (MAV+) was launched in 2021. MAV+ is a comprehensive partnership tackling barriers to manufacturing and access to health products and technologies in Africa that is tightly aligned with African strategies and priorities. The overall objective of MAV+ is to facilitate access to quality, safe, effective, and affordable health products – and by that also promote health and well-being.

We also believe that innovative financing mechanisms and private sector engagement will be critical to enhancing global health investments. For example, in a financing partnership with the European Investment Bank and the Gates Foundation, the EU has launched the Accelerating Human Development guarantee that will mobilise up to 750 million EUR of health investments worldwide, particularly in LMICs. The aim is to strengthen health systems and to improve access to health technologies by de-risking investments in private sector initiatives that promote universal health coverage

This spring we look forward to starting the work towards the UNGA High Level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases and Mental Health to pursue our ambition to promote health and well-being for all – leaving no one behind.

President, Excellencies 

While global health is a high priority for the EU and its Member States, once again we regret that several of our major concerns were ignored. 

We continue to dissociate from uncaveated or partially uncaveated references to transfer of technology and know-how in paragraphs OP5, and OP20. 

The transfer of technology and know-how that we join in calling for must be voluntary and on mutually agreed terms – a clear and unambiguous language meaning that the process is initiated willingly by the concerned parties and is implemented under mutually agreed conditions - and follow international obligations. 

We regret such language being omitted from the final text. Technology transfer which is voluntary and on mutually agreed terms will secure the most adequate, quick, and efficient response to future pandemics.

In addition, we have continuously expressed strong reservations with several other paragraphs and would like to put on the record that, in our understanding, no precedent is set with the following paragraphs:

• PP18: The EU and its Member States can only recognise references to the World Trade Organization Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health that are comprehensive and fully aligned to its text. 

• PP20: with reference to our dissociation from OP5 and OP20, we can not agree to the depiction of technology transfer in this paragraph.

• PP35: it does not reflect the many dimensions of this issue, underscoring that this resolution is not the proper place for its discussion, which is the upcoming High-Level Meeting on NCDs and mental health. The paragraph remains inconsistent with previously agreed language on fiscal and regulatory measures, particularly the 2018 Political Declaration on NCDs. 

• OP2 and OP4: The EU and its Member States stress that the creation of yet additional funds and financing initiatives further deepen harmful fragmentation of overall health financing and undermine the important objective of ensuring its sustainability, in particular in the current difficult resource context. 

• OP3: The EU and its Member States stress that international cooperation to support efforts to build and strengthen capacity in developing countries may take different forms, which may nor may not include enhanced official development assistance. This will depend inter alia on the context and circumstances of different developing country partners.

Notwithstanding the above, the EU is fully and unreservedly committed to the overarching objective of the resolution, which is to promote health for all and, despite these concerns and reservations, the EU voted in favour of the text. 

In conclusion, the EU and its Member States reiterate their support for multilateralism, we welcome the preliminary consensus on the Pandemic Agreement which was reached on 16 April by the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body and we look forward to the next steps, including the proceedings with regard to the document at the World Health Assembly in May.

We also want to emphasize our unwavering support and commitment to WHO as the cornerstone of the global health architecture and express our support for WHO to fulfill this unique convening role. Enhancing coordination, seeking synergies and complementarity, eliminating overlaps and avoiding gaps is key to rationalize this global health ecosystem and improve its efficiency.  

We will continue to work together with all members, in bilateral, regional and multilateral fora, in the WHO and at the UN, on the acute as well as long-term challenges to global health, and look forward to engaging in that same spirit on the political declaration on Non-Communicable Diseases and Mental Health.  

Thank you.

* North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina continue to be part of the Stabilisation and Association Process.