EU Statement – UN General Assembly 5th Committee Second Resumed Session: Organisation of Work

Mr. Chair,

I have the honor to speak on behalf of the Member States of the European Union.

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

As many countries around the world celebrate Labor Day today May 1st, allow me to start by paying tribute to the continued hard work, bravery, and commitment of all UN personnel, uniformed and civilian, who serve the United Nations in its headquarters and in many operations around the world, and honor those who have sacrificed their lives for peace. In the current circumstances, their dedication, despite the many challenges they face, allows our Organization to continue to be a beacon of peace.

Allow me to also kindly request your indulgence, as this is the only statement we intend to deliver for the introduction of all agenda items, it may slightly exceed the time limit.

Mr. Chair,

In a time of unprecedented level of conflicts and ever more complex operating environments, the European Union and its Member States remain staunch supporters of both, the UN peacebuilding and peacekeeping efforts. We would like to reiterate here our commitment to strengthening peacekeeping along the eight priorities of the Action for Peacekeeping Declaration. We believe it is our collective responsibility to make sure peacekeeping remains fit for success, and welcome the many opportunities to do so in the Fifth Committee.

First, we are deeply committed to the UN peace-building efforts: while some missions are drawing down, we are cognizant of efforts to build sustainable peace. To this end, we work closely with the United Nations and other partners, like the African Union, on issues related to peace and security at large. We are pleased to see that this cooperation was key in the significant progress achieved on financing the Peacebuilding Fund. We look forward to concluding our debates successfully in order to ensure more predictable and sustainable funding for the peacebuilding fund, a year after the General Assembly gave us the mandate to allocate assessed contributions.

Second, as the second largest collective contributors to UN peacekeeping budgets, we are dedicated to ensuring that UN peacekeeping operations and their support functions are well financed, sufficiently staffed, and adequately equipped to carry out their important mandates. We reiterate that it is our responsibility to enable long term planning, both for the missions and for the women and men deployed to maintain peace and security under the UN flag, and we call upon all Member States to pay their contributions to all peacekeeping missions – in full, on time and without conditions, as set out in the United Nations Charter. We also attach great importance to performance and the cost-efficient conduct of peacekeeping missions and welcome in this regard the crucial role of the service centers. As also observed on the 5C field trip in February this year, the UN Global Service Center is of instrumental support in finding cost-efficiencies in innovative and demand-driven solutions to the peacekeeping missions.

And third, we take great pride in the achievements of our Committee these past few years, when adopting key framework resolutions that have significantly improved management of peacekeeping operations and the implementation of their mandates.

• On the one hand, we welcome progress achieved in managing the liquidity situation of the peacekeeping operations and regarding the liquidation of closed peacekeeping operations. We look forward to making further progress this year regarding liquidation mechanisms and automatic disbursements for the four closing ones.
• On the other hand, we also welcome the adoption of the long awaited crosscutting policy resolution last year. The European Union and its Member States are convinced that this guidance on important administrative and budgetary policy areas helps the Secretariat carry out the peacekeeping operations and to use the resources more effectively in support of mandate delivery. It is now our Committee’s responsibility to measure progress in this regard, for instance on the important operational issues of the women peace and security agenda, safety and security of the peacekeepers, environmental footprint of missions, gender parity, human rights, and the continued fight against sexual exploitation and abuse. We also need to continue to provide further guidance to the Secretariat, and look forward to our discussions on the delivery model of the UN Mine Action Service in this regard.

Mr. Chair,

On substance, we intend to follow-up on our collective observations during the field trip, as several interlocutors during the field trip highlighted the importance of risk management, which the Board of Auditors has also emphasized in their recommendations.

We also welcome the possibility this year to reassess the rate of reimbursement for contingent owned equipment. We commend all Member States that support peacekeeping on the ground and provide uniformed personnel, equipment and other capabilities, as we strongly believe in active participation in peacekeeping missions.

On process, through several trials and errors over the years, we believe our Committee has identified the most productive path forward. On the one hand, we achieve better results by concentrating policy discussions in “crosscutting”, hence delinking them from budget numbers: we will not introduce cross-cutting policy paragraphs in the budget resolutions of individual peacekeeping operations, and we invite all our partners to continue to do the same. On the other hand, we are able to make more informed decisions by conducting thorough mission-by-mission discussions, including a fair assessment of all three support functions as an integral part and the backbone of peacekeeping, while a comprehensive approach in combination helps closing our discussions and adopting an allocation. This year again, to successfully comply with our mandate, we will need a combination of both approaches.

Overall, we need to uphold timelines and deadlines that will allow the Secretariat to implement our resolutions in time. We also need pragmatism and political will from all groups and delegations to ensure we can adopt adequate and sustainable budgets that allow for effective mandate implementation. Collectively, we may send a positive message to staff and the troops in the field by concluding our session on time and with consensus.

You can count on our support, Mr. Chair, to achieve these ambitious goals and we will work closely with all groups and delegations in a spirit of good faith, transparency and constructive cooperation.

I thank you, Mr. Chair.

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