– CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY –

Thank you, Mr. Chair,

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, and Bosnia and Herzegovina^*, as well as Monaco, align themselves with this statement.

Mr. Chair,

The General Assembly established the Charter Committee with the objective of enhancing the ability of the United Nations to achieve its purposes and make its functioning more effective. It is therefore all the more deplorable that for the third consecutive year, the Committee was not even able to adopt a substantive report on its debates. Against this background, we thank the Chair, the Bureau, as well as the Secretariat, for their tireless efforts to make progress as regards the work of the Charter Committee.

We welcome the opportunity to provide some brief remarks about this year’s debates and the future work of the Committee.

First, as staunch supporters of the rules-based international order, we were pleased to engage in the debate on peaceful means of dispute settlement under Article 33 of the Charter. We look forward to participating in the next annual thematic debate. As previously indicated, we see merit in discussing non-political topics that do not duplicate discussions elsewhere in the United Nations, also with a view to more constructive exchanges, including on the adoption of the report.

Second, we thank the Secretary-General for his report on the Repertory of Practice of United Nations Organs and Repertoire of the Practice of the Security Council. We praise the Secretariat’s continued efforts to expand the use of technology to present the practice of all UN bodies in the most accessible manner. In particular, we welcome the modernisation of the Security Council’s website in July 2024 and the launch of a new online dashboard providing an overview of the Council’s practice on climate, peace, and security. We express our gratitude to those who have made voluntary contributions to the trust fund, including EU Member States, which enabled such progress. We take the opportunity to also express our gratitude to the Office of Legal Affairs and to congratulate Mr. Pronto on his appointment as Director of the Codification Division.

Third, regarding the addition of new items to the agenda, we acknowledge a growing interest on Mexico’s proposal to discuss the implementation of Article 51 of the Charter. We see merit in some of the elements of this subject and hope we can all advance towards some engagement on this issue. This would certainly help to find new spaces of discussion and engagement which could positively revitalize the works of the Charter Committee.

Finally, regarding the annual briefing on UN sanctions - discussed under the item ‘Maintenance of international peace and security’ -, we would like to reiterate our position. Sanctions are a vital peaceful tool available to the UN Security Council to ensure the maintenance of international peace and security, and respond to acts that breach international norms, including serious human rights violations and abuses.

To be effective, sanctions need to be properly implemented by all UN member states. In this respect, it is deplorable that, last March, the Russian Federation vetoed the extension of the mandate for the DPRK Sanctions Committee’s Panel of Experts in the Security Council. Moreover, the EU is deeply alarmed by reports that the DPRK is sending troops to participate in Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine. This would constitute a serious breach of international law, including the most fundamental principles of the UN Charter.

While sanctions adopted and implemented outside of UN auspices are not the focus of the Charter Committee’s work, many delegations regularly use the debate in the Charter Committee as yet another platform for promoting their narrative on what they call “unilateral coercive measures” (“UCM”). In this regard, we simply recall the detailed statement that we delivered at the General Assembly on 13 June 2024 (agenda item 28). That statement explains the reasons for which the EU adopts restrictive measures, their intended outcomes, their features and notably their compliance with international law. It also explains why the UCM narrative can be misleading and is often a politically motivated attempt to divert attention away from the reasons the sanctions were imposed in the first place.

Today, we simply wish to recall that together with its Member States, the EU is the biggest donor of humanitarian assistance, including to countries where sanctions are in place, and the largest donor of development aid in the world. Moreover, the EU has not only fully transposed UN Security Council Resolution 2664, which provided a humanitarian carve-out from the asset freeze from UN sanctions regimes, but it also introduced an equivalent humanitarian carve-out to the majority of EU regimes of restrictive measures, to facilitate humanitarian action.

Mr. Chair,

To conclude, the EU and its Member States engaged constructively in the debate of the Special Committee on the Charter last February and will continue to do so next year, to contribute to the Committee’s objectives.

Thank you.

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