EU Statement – UN General Assembly: Secretary-General’s Priorities for 2024
{Final for publication}
Mr Secretary-General, Mr [PGA] President,
Distinguished colleagues,
I have the honour to speak on behalf of the EU and its Member States.
The Candidate Countries North Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania, Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, as well Andorra, Monaco and San Marino align themselves with this statement.
Thank you, Mr Secretary General, for your annual report and for presenting your priorities for 2024. Most of all, we would like to commend your relentless efforts in favour of conflict prevention and mediation, addressing the root causes of conflict, support to the most vulnerable, being vigilant on addressing human rights violations and abuses, and fighting poverty.
We share your assessment that despite some notable progress, the world is facing multiple crises that are increasingly complex and interconnected:
- From the Middle East to the Sahel, from Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine to the Horn of Africa, from Haiti to Afghanistan, crises are morphing, trampling on international law and the UN Charter, and proliferating. Humanitarian access is being challenged in Ukraine, Gaza, Myanmar, Yemen, to name just a few. Mis- and dis-information are being weaponized to aggravate tensions. And, as you rightly put it, we must carefully weigh the risk and opportunities provided by digital technologies and Artificial Intelligence.
- On February 24th, we will commemorate the two-year anniversary of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, which remains a blatant violation of the UN Charter and of the international rules-based order which the UN stands for. The ripple effects are still felt across the world, proliferating food and energy insecurity, which affects above all else the most vulnerable.
- The triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution also continues to ravage our world, here again affecting the most vulnerable.
- Regression of socio-economic development and undermining the universality of human rights, in particular women’s rights, needs to stop. To reduce poverty and inequality, solidarity, social protection, and tackling the crippling effect of debt are much needed.
Mr Secretary-General, we are at a cross-roads. We have the choice: either to continue down the current path of geopolitical mistrust and competition or to cooperate effectively to address our common challenges.
Under your guidance, Mr Secretary-General, and your commitment to move our common agenda forward, we must recommit to act together to make the world safer, rights-based, more sustainable, and more equitable. A great number of initiatives have laid the groundwork. They need to be fully implemented. 2024 must be the year where we overcome the barriers that have hampered us to move forward. We may not always agree on everything, but we need to remember again how to respect each other and to discuss. Enough with the toxic polarization, which not only many of our people waiting for solutions, but I bet many of us in the room too, are getting increasingly tired of.
A crucial opportunity that we must seize to reinvigorate the multilateral system is the Pact for the Future. We are also looking with great hope to the upcoming LLDC and SIDS conferences and to the World Social Summit, which can be an important step for rebuilding the social contract through a comprehensive approach based on social cohesion, solidarity, health, education, decent work, and human rights protections for all. The EU is committed to reinforcing the social dimension of sustainable development. “Human dignity” must return to the center of our deliberations.
- On peace and security
Mr Secretary General,
On Peace and Security, we support the vision laid out in your New Agenda for Peace:
- 1) the need to go back to basics, with a renewed commitment to multilateralism and the full and effective respect of the UN Charter;
- 2) the need for more investment in prevention
- 3) and the need to adjust UN tools to new threats and challenges, so that the UN is fit for purpose.
Above all, we must not let the global situation further deteriorate, let might make right, sabotage what UN founders put in place for the benefit of humanity 79 years ago. We are convinced that multilateralism, with the UN at its core, is needed more than ever.
One main important aspect of multilateralism with the UN at its core is the respect for the mandate of the UN Secretary General. We fully stand behind you and the legitimacy of your office, and by your efforts as well as those of your envoys, to mediate in all conflicts.
The UN is a unique convener and can play a key role in mediation. We notably support UN’s mediation role in Yemen, Afghanistan, and Cyprus. We place our hopes in the new Senior Humanitarian Coordinator for Gaza to quickly and sustainably step up humanitarian aid in the strip. We further call on more involvement and more leadership from the UN in Myanmar.
The past year has been a very difficult year for UN peace operations with an unprecedented wave of forced closures - in Sudan or, crucially, Mali without allowing the UN the space for a proper and orderly withdrawal. Despite this wave of forced withdrawals, and the feeling from some UN member states that UN PKOs are no longer fit for purpose, we believe that they are still very relevant. These PKOs are very often the last entity present on the ground able to protect civilians and carry out political, human rights and peace dimensions, which disappear when UN PKOs withdraw. We agree that new threats require adjustments, and new models of peace operations. This is why we support your proposal of expanding the toolbox of UN Peace Support Operations with various types of models, depending on the needs on the ground and the type of threats. We are convinced that regional organisations can play an important role in this regard and we welcome Security Council resolution 2719 on using assessed contributions to support African Union PSOs. The current work on a multinational support mission for Haiti shows how important it is to have more predictable and systematized mechanisms. We also stress the importance of strengthening the Peace-building Commission to reinforce link between peace and security, development and human rights
Disinformation is part of the new threats we face and a very dangerous and destabilizing tool. We commend your efforts to counter it. Unfortunately, the UN is also targeted by disinformation attempts, including against its PKOs on the ground. It is important for the UN to strengthen its capacities to counter disinformation and will support that endeavour.
Mr Secretary General,
- On Human Rights and humanitarian issues
The EU fully supports the mainstreaming of human rights in all the activities of the UN for achieving lasting security, sustainable development, and justice. Efforts must be made to support the international human rights mechanisms, and their funding must be secured. We appreciate the efforts to counter discrimination, on any ground, and share your assessment on the need to preserve and expand space for civil society.
Against a background of global backsliding of gender equality, we count on your support and on all UN actors to keep the full enjoyment of all human rights by all women and girls. The human rights of children and youth must also be protected. Allow me also to reaffirm today the EU’s continued and equal engagement on civil, cultural economic, political and social rights.
As we face unprecedented humanitarian needs and challenges, the EU remains a strong partner and supporter of the UN coordinated humanitarian responses that put people at the centre of its action. International humanitarian law must be respected in all humanitarian crises and no-one must be left behind. As we face continued rising food insecurity due to manmade and natural disasters, further exacerbated by the negative impact of climate change, that impacts disproportionally the most vulnerable communities, the EU will remain a solid partner of multilateral action and responses to avert famine and address food insecurity.
- On sustainable development
The SDG Summit provided a unique opportunity to acknowledge the accomplishments, and more importantly to reverse the backsliding in the implementation of the SDGs towards achieving the targets of the 2030 Agenda.
We welcome the commitments made at the recent High-level Dialogue on Financing for Development and call for appropriate follow-up. The EU remains committed to supporting a recovery based on the transition to a greener economy that is innovative, just and inclusive. The green transition should be seen as an opportunity to continue the equitable integration of emerging and developing economies into the world economy, and, in this respect, all efforts should be made to preserve the relevance of the multilateral rules-based trading system and trust in multilateral institutions such as the WTO. We need to channel investment to where it is needed the most. We underscore the need for a collaborative approach to address the complexities of financing development. It is crucial to bring together diverse stakeholders. Such collaboration can foster good governance, transparency, anti-corruption as well as greater coherence in policies.
In tandem and just as crucially, the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, constitutes an existential threat for people and the planet and must be tackled with the strongest sense of urgency.
Finally, we must accompany the digital transition in all its dimensions. We must ensure the same respect, protection, and promotion of human rights, democratic values, and the rule of law both online and offline. This includes championing a human-centric and rights-focused approach to digital technologies, notably Artificial Intelligence, throughout their lifecycle. And we must address and narrow the digital gap, between and within countries. Our mission should be to guide this digital transformation towards inclusivity – safeguarding digital commons, ensuring affordable connectivity, bridging digital divides, advancing gender equality, and upholding human rights both online and offline
Mr Secretary General,
Let me conclude on a final point: In order to achieve common joint priorities, we need an effective, efficient and accountable UN-system – and with it, trust within and throughout the membership.
The EU and its member states commend the UN’s reformative agenda. It is necessary to make the UN more efficient, effective, more accountable, and more inclusive.
We wish to express our support to the inter-governmental negotiation on the UN Security Council reform, the GA Revitalisation, and the ECOSOC Reform. We also support your efforts to make the Resident Coordinator system more effective on the ground.
Distinguished colleagues,
We cannot achieve ambition without financial means. We are seriously concerned about the liquidity situation of the UN.
We share your concerns about the accelerating liquidity crisis that hampers regular budget operations, and jeopardizes your ability to deliver on mandates. We are alarmed that, more and more activities and outputs are being postponed or even cancelled. Programme managers, who operate in a context of income unpredictability, are no longer making decisions based on what is best for mandate implementation, but what is possible with available resources. As staunch defenders of effective multilateralism, the EU Member States comply with their financial obligation to the Organization in full, on time, and without condition. We reiterate our call that all Member States make every effort to pay their assessed contributions in full, and on time, and where not possible, to communicate their payment plans clearly and reliably to the Secretariat in order to provide as much predictability as possible.
Mr Secretary General,
To overcome all these challenges, trust is paramount. You can count on the EU and its Member States to work with all regions to seek balanced compromises and put words into action, and to continue to contribute to reducing poverty and inequality and alleviating humanitarian crises, tackling climate change, improve food systems, promoting energy and digital transformation and preventing the undermining of human rights
Thank you./.