EU Intervention – UN General Assembly: Briefing by the G20 Co-Sherpa
EU Intervention – UN General Assembly: Briefing by the G20 Co-Sherpa
Mister President, Excellencies,
We thank Ambassador Djani for his briefing and for this opportunity to share our views.
As a member of the G20 we remain committed to work together to improve the rules-based international order and to keep the G20 as an efficient, relevant and credible forum, which delivers on its word and on tackling new challenges and shows leadership on implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and on the achievement of its SDGs. But the credibility, efficiency and relevance of the G20 is at stake when one of its members blatantly undermines the international rules based order. The EU will not accept any complacency with those responsible for the military aggression against Ukraine and its wider effects on the international order and on the global economy.
The consequences of Russia's unjustified ongoing aggression against Ukraine, violating international law and the UN Charter, is proving a tremendous human suffering and creating food shortages well beyond Ukraine’s borders. Its global repercussion, notably in food and energy prices, will hit hard on the most vulnerable. This aggression engenders substantial risks to the global outlook where pandemic developments are still evolving, low vaccination rates persist and we are witnessing supply-chain disruptions, increasing food and energy prices, high inflationary pressures, financial markets volatility, debt accumulation, and where inequalities are on the rise.
The actions of the Russian government directly impact the mission of the G20, where business cannot go on as usual. The Indonesian presidency faces a different world order today than the one existing when it took over the G20 Presidency.
The COVID-19 pandemic is not over and the economic recovery is still far and uneven across and within countries.
We should continue to use all available policy tools to address the impacts of the pandemic, in particular on those most impacted, notably women and youth, and we welcome the Indonesian priorities aimed at strengthening women in leadership, empowering women in the economy and closing the gender gaps.
As agreed by the G20 leaders in Rome, it is of utmost importance that we reach the global vaccination targets of vaccinating at least 70% of the world’s population in all countries by the first half of 2022. The EU is sharing over two thirds of its vaccine production with the rest of the world. The Team Europe target is to donate 700 million vaccine doses by mid-2022. We should also support capacity building for sequencing, testing, treatments and vaccination. In this respect, the EU is investing heavily in vaccine manufacturing in Africa and also engaging with South America. We also have to move swiftly to put in place the agreement to establish the health-finance task force on pandemic preparedness and the work on exploring the modalities for a financing facility.
The G20, in particular our Agriculture Ministers should demonstrate our concern for the current backsliding of the SDG commitments, especially the elimination of hunger by 2023, and step up multilateral action. The war in Ukraine including the destroyed infrastructure, production fall-outs has led to rising grain prices and serious concerns over food security in many countries. The G20 needs to address these global consequences of the war decisively. . We believe that is its important to strengthen the resilience of global supply chains, monitor closely commodities and energy prices developments, and shift the focus from cyclical to structural policies, in particular the green transitions.
On Climate and environmental issues, we welcome the work programme on climate change brought forward by the Indonesian Presidency and value the opportunity to further explore synergies between the climate and environment agenda. But we are concerned that climate and energy seem to be addressed separately despite the clear nexus between both agendas. It is important to bring forward the G20 work on clean energy transition as a key headline priority. Accelerating the clean energy transition will ensure that all countries have the freedom of their energy choices. The European Commission has put forward the REPowerEU plan, which aims at ensuring affordability, security and sustainability of energy in the EU, by diversifying gas suppliers and speeding up the roll out of renewables.
We must face the fact that we still have a global ambition gap regarding the pace of global emissions reductions. Even assuming delivery on all the pledges made, experts are telling that we are still at serious risk of missing the upper temperature limit of 2oC, whereas we should be aiming at the safer +1’5oC.
We invite the Indonesian Presidency to ensure the implementation of the G20 Sustainable Finance Roadmap and to include biodiversity-related aspects, and we look forward to working with the membership for preventing land degradation, halting deforestation, and restoring degraded lands and ecosystems.
In relation to the G20 Common Framework for Debt Relief beyond the Debt Suspension Initiative, we ask the Presidency to ensure collaboration between all G20 members, particularly those members who are major creditors to low-income countries, in order to swiftly ensure the implementation of the framework. Last year USD 650 billion worth of IMF Special Drawing Rights were allocated. The EU welcomes the USD 60 billion that have been pledged so far by G20 and non-G20 members, of which EU Member States have so far pledged USD 13 billion. We are grateful that Indonesia has identified Digital issues, and “Data Free Flow with Trust” in particular, as a priority for its G20 Presidency. We must also fully and quickly implement the 2 pillars agreement to address tax challenges arising from the digitalization of the economy, noting that the agreed 2023 implementation deadline is ambitious but feasible. We welcome the strengthened focus on digital skills and we would like to learn more about the human pillar of connectivity.
Finally, but not the least, it is essential that sustainable development stays high in the G20 agenda and at the core of G20 work. The pandemic jeopardised the achievement of the SDGs. It is necessary to accelerate the full implementation of the 2030 Agenda and of its SDGs, which must be effectively mainstreamed in all the work of the G20 for strengthen policy coherence and coordination. Therefore, we support the Indonesia presidency envisaged focus on the topic of renewed multilateralism for the upcoming G20 Development Ministers meeting, contributing to better connect the work of the G20 with the UN, which should emphasise the need to accelerate the implementation of the SDGs.
As a G20 member, the EU stands ready to play its part in ensuring the G20 can rise to its mission of addressing global challenges.
Thank you.