Mr. President, colleagues,

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

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

We would like to thank Norway and the entire core group team for their efforts and engagement on this resolution.

With the world still under the impression of the COVID-19 pandemic going into its third year, the topic is if high relevance and importance: pandemics - constituting a major threat to all our health and lives, economies and livelihoods.

This is a time for humanity to come together in solidarity and cooperation. Instead, Russia in its brutal military aggression against Ukraine with the involvement of Belarus is targeting indiscriminately civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals. The resolution that we adopted on 24 March demands full respect for and protection of all medical and humanitarian personnel as well as medical equipment and facilities; we urge Russia to uphold it fully, and respect their obligations under international law. We are also concerned about the dire humanitarian situation in relation to several other ongoing armed conflicts.

Unfortunately, this pandemic will not be the last one. Given its negative impacts on almost all aspects of human life, we need to do everything to prevent the emergence of new epidemics, prevent epidemics from becoming pandemics, and prepare to better respond to future pandemics and other health threats In this regard, we especially welcome a number of important elements and commitments in this resolution, including on:

• increasing international coordination on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response and supporting the process in Geneva on a WHO convention, agreement or other international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response;
• prioritizing pandemic prevention, preparedness and response in our national agendas, with full respect for human rights;
• achieving Universal Health Coverage and building resilient and equitable health systems able to provide essential public health functions and health services also during health emergencies, which  are at the core of every success or failure in every health related aspect.
• acknowledging the importance of improved global, regional and local manufacturing - an approach the EU actively supports in several African countries already.
• We also acknowledged the need to fully fund the ACT-Accelerator. The ACT-A is the most powerful and truly multilateral tool to deliver vaccines equally through the COVAX pillar. It also address the needs on therapeutics, diagnostics and the crucial aspect of health system strengthening and country readiness.
• We clearly recognized the detrimental effects of COVID-19 on gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. This needs to be translated into effective countermeasures. Gender equality is a prerequisite not only for building back better but also for effectively preventing and preparing against pandemics.
• We are happy to see an agreement on setting up another High Level Meeting on AMR in 2024 – more needs to be done, to address the “silent pandemic” of AMR.
• Addressing the challenges of human, animal and ecosystem health using an OneHealth approach is essential in tackling the root causes for pandemics. We are delighted to see that the call for closer cooperation between the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), has resulted in the establishment of the Quadripartite as it signed a Memorandum of Understanding with UNEP this March.

Nevertheless, given that this is a fundamental resolution on health in the General Assembly, we are convinced the text would have benefitted from integrating also some holistic aspects like the explicit acknowledgment of sexual and reproductive health-care services as part of essential public health.

As an outlook to the next GHFP resolution, we encourage the process to be more transparent so that delegations can plan accordingly on the basis of an early shared time-table.

Thank you.