Dear co-facilitators, colleagues,

I am delivering this statement on behalf of the EU and its Member States.

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

Please take my remarks as our initial reflections as we are still studying the proposal in more detail. But we are also keen to hear from others. At the outset, let me commend both of you for facilitating such open, transparent, and inclusive preparatory process thus far. This is an incredibly complex task and you are doing a great job.

‘Our Common Agenda’ called for bold measures to address the colossal challenges we are facing for a leap forward. The UN75 Declaration and our leaders committed themselves to such an agenda  and we now have a rich menu to take  forward –enriched by the dedicated policy briefs and the HLAB report. With the ‘Summit of the Future’ only 15 months away, the membership now needs to decide on the menu and the respective courses for the ‘Pact for the Future’.

The Ministerial preparatory meeting in September is an important stepping stone in this process, taking place right after the SDG Summit, our all top priority this year. The Ministerial meeting should therefore be an occasion to recap and build upon the outcome of the SDG Summit aiming towards the Summit of the Future. Both Summits share the objective of accelerating the SDG’s implementation.

We will engage constructively towards reaching an agreement on the scope and elements of the Summit of the Future in the coming weeks for our Ministers’ endorsement in September. This would equip us with a clear roadmap to kick off the preparations right after High-level Week and ensure we can deliver on an ambitious outcome.

In this regard, we are supportive of your suggestion for having the 12 commitments from the UN75 Declaration serve as an anchor for the respective elements of the Pact for the Future. We also support the Summit to be geared towards advancing on the implementation of those commitments – both boosting the implementation of existing agreements, most notably the 2030 Agenda, and filling gaps in global governance. We should avid duplication and overlapping of existing intergovernmental processes.

Turning to the elements of the decision:  First, we believe that your proposal for the structure of the Pact to consist of a chapeau and several overarching clusters, which in themselves contain specific policy elements, is a good one.

Secondly, we agree that the chapeau should frame the Pact for the Future, while allowing to draw linkages with other key processes and to reaffirm our commitment to existing agreements, such as the 2030 Agenda, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda or the Paris Agreement and the Kunming-Montreal Framework. We also see the logic for the chapeau to highlight those UN75 commitments already being addressed through existing intergovernmental processes and hence not requiring a full chapter in the Pact.

While we agree on the importance of those four areas you listed, we would expect the chapeau to address the UN75 commitments in their entirety. This starts with a recommitment to the UN Charter, multilateralism and to international law, to the rule of law, human rights, sustainable development, including climate and environment, and peace and security - in line with the UN’s 3 pillars.

Thirdly, we also concur with the merit of having several cross-cutting elements as red thread for the ‘Pact’ and see the rationale for the four elements you have chosen. We urgently need to see concrete deliverables on human rights in all its dimensions, reflecting the commitment of the SG’s Call to Action for human rights and his call for a new social contract anchored in human rights in ‘Our Common Agenda’. We thus want to see human rights fully mainstreamed throughout the Pact. This includes the rights of women and girls as well as of children. We are falling behind on our commitments just as we are commemorating the 75^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  We see “putting women and girls at the center' as a commitment to mainstreaming gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls across the Pact.

Fourthly, on the four clusters: The headings you proposed all have a clear justification, including digital cooperation and the reform- and future oriented fourth cluster. We also appreciate the indication how the different elements, including on the Declaration on Future Generation, would land in the Summit of the Future outcome. We would need clear timelines for each policy elements to ensure we deliver by the time of the Summit. We would also like to reiterate our strong attachment to advancing on the social agenda with a view towards the World Social Summit and for the close interlinkage between the different summits be reflected in the chapeau.

Fifth, when it comes to the specific elements, we recognize that all certainly have merit to be considered as part of the Summit outcome. While we are awaiting the policy brief, we may want to discuss which gap the “Transforming Education” element would seek to address given last year’s Transforming Education Summit.

We clearly recognize that a lot of thinking has gone into which element could fit which commitment. We would need to study this further, but our initial response is positive. The detailed table would benefit from further clarification on which elements are actual new proposals and which ones relate to the implementation of existing agreements, which is particularly relevant in the reform chapter.

Lastly, we note that the draft elements for the decision do not spell out the modalities for the Ministerial meeting as was done for the Summit. This would need to be agreed somewhere. As mentioned earlier, we would favour an interactive meeting that also involves stakeholders and allows for a “reporting back” from the SDG Summit in the opening. I thank you.