Madam Chair,

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union.

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

The EU reiterates its support for the three mutually reinforcing fora of disarmament machinery – the UN General Assembly First Committee, the Conference on Disarmament and the UN Disarmament Commission. The international community bears a collective responsibility to respect their integrity and ensure that these fora remain relevant and reach results in line with their agreed mandates. Promoting effective multilateralism and rules-based global governance is, in fact, the cornerstone of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy. The EU will continue to do its utmost to protect the integrity of the rules-based international system, which is key to our collective security.

The EU is deeply concerned at the deteriorating security environment as well as the continued erosion of the international arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation architecture. Russia’s ongoing illegal, unjustified and unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine has further exacerbated this situation. We will continue to counter all attempts to undermine the rules-based order stemming from the UN Charter and the integrity of international bodies through blatant breaches of international law and political commitments, such as Russia’s violations of the UN Charter and international law, including International Humanitarian Law.

Moreover, we will continue to defend the values and principles of multilateralism, including the active participation of various stakeholders, such as regional and intergovernmental organisations, academia, civil society and industry. It is therefore essential that the First Committee focusses on identifying concrete measures to advance disarmament and non-proliferation goals to address the major challenges to international peace and security and to protect rules-based order.

We are very concerned that the Conference on Disarmament continues to be deadlocked. We welcome the adoption of the five Subsidiary Bodies’ draft reports by consensus in the Conference on Disarmament and look forward to working in the Subsidiary Bodies in 2025. The EU’s central aim in this forum remains the same: to reinvigorate substantive work towards concrete negotiations. Failing to adopt and implement a programme of work, and not having fulfilled the negotiation mandate of the Conference on Disarmament for thirty years is untenable and stands in stark contrast to the significant security challenges and threats we face today. Furthermore, we regret that 17 observer requests were ultimately not accepted in the 2024 session. The unprecedented decision by Russia to block the participation of 15 EU Member States and Candidate Countries is not acceptable to the EU and represents a grave violation of basic principles of multilateralism. We continue to oppose Türkiye’s repeated objections to Cyprus’s request to become a CD observer State. These actions undermined the relevance and legitimacy of the only disarmament negotiating body, which continues to be closed off from further enlargement. This decision not only disregards the UN General Assembly resolution on the Report of the Conference on Disarmament (A/RES/78/61) adopted by consensus last year, but more importantly has effectively prevented the participation of UN Member States, who through their yearly contributions to the UN budget, also finance the CD.

Our longstanding priority in the CD is to immediately commence negotiations of a treaty banning the production of fissile material for use in nuclear weapons or other explosive devices (FMCT) and we support starting such negotiations in accordance with the document CD/1299 and the mandate contained therein. We urgently call on all States to contribute to facilitating the long-overdue negotiations on a FMCT. The FMCT complements other disarmament measures, such as the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) and strategic arms reduction agreements. We expect that the relevant Subsidiary Body will further advance this work, building on the work of Group of Governmental Experts and High Level Expert Preparatory Group.

The EU supports the enlargement of the CD which currently comprises only 65 members. We call for the urgent appointment of a special coordinator who could lead substantive consultations on the expansion of membership and lay out concrete scenarios for the consideration of CD members.

The Pact for future provides a unique opportunity to reinvigorate multilateralism, make it fit to tackle current and future global challenges, and reduce the trust gap towards institutions at all levels and among UN members. For those actions relevant to this Committee, noting that the EU is more ambitious in some relevant aspects, we look forward to engaging on the aspects related to revitalising the disarmament machinery and achieving concrete progress.

The EU welcomes the work of the United Nations Disarmament Commission (UNDC) in 2024 and this year’s focus of Working Group II on “emerging technologies in the context of international security”. We hope that the UNDC will be able to make further progress in all topics under its purview in order to prove to be a functioning integral component of the UN disarmament machinery.

We highly value the important work of UNIDIR as a stand-alone, autonomous institution, which continues to be an essential component of the UN disarmament machinery. Its high-quality research and the implementation of initiatives can help to move disarmament processes forward. This recognition is demonstrated through substantial funding of the EU and its Member States. The EU supports UNIDIR’s Security and Technology Programme through the EU’s Council Decision (CFSP 2022/2320) amounting to 1.2 million EUR. We support the increase of the UN budget to UNIDIR.

We recall that the EU continues to provide significant political and financial support to a number of treaties, conventions and other agreements in the area of disarmament and non-proliferation, which also enables the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) and UNIDIR to carry out various project activities and we will continue to do so.

Gender equality and full empowerment of women and girls are key, cross-cutting priorities for the EU. We welcome and support efforts to promote gender equality and ensure women’s full, active, equal, and meaningful participation in all matters of peace and security, as set out in the Women, Peace and Security Agenda, including in leadership positions in disarmament, non-proliferation and arms control fora. The EU will engage further to transform gendered power dynamics in peace and security as suggested by the UN Secretary-General in action 5 of his recommendations under the “New Agenda for Peace”.

In all disarmament fora, including the Conference on Disarmament, we encourage increased engagement with youth, as well as their meaningful participation and cooperation with civil society, academia, industry, research institutions, and affected communities and would welcome further relevant initiatives in this regard.

Finally, the UN disarmament machinery and its various instruments cannot function properly without sound financing. We express our deep concern over the critical financial situation across the UN system, its bodies, treaties and conventions. Once again, we strongly urge those States, which have not yet done so, to pay their contributions in full and on time and to settle their arrears, in order to enable the effective functioning of multilateral institutions and instruments on which we all depend.

I thank you, Madam Chair.

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