Chair, 

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

The European Union and its Member States greatly appreciate your strong personal commitment and efforts to facilitate an inclusive session of the Third Committee. We strongly support the initiative to hold today’s meeting. It is especially timely considering the substantial negative impact of the pandemic on civil society’s access to meetings and information at the UN.

The Member States of the United Nations have reaffirmed on multiple occasions the need to make the UN more inclusive and boost our partnerships with all relevant stakeholders, specifically civil society and human rights defenders. We must take concrete steps to implement our promises of inclusivity, notably by operationalizing Our Common Agenda. The Third Committee should be a leader in this regard and work to improve conditions for full, effective, meaningful and systematic civil society participation.

Chair,

The EU and its Member States are satisfied with the work of the Committee this year and we are pleased that resolutions were negotiated in substance. Many resolutions saw notable achievements and progress.

The progress achieved can, in many instances, be attributed to the active work of civil society, including NGOs and human rights defenders. We take the opportunity of this meeting to express our sincere appreciation for the valuable input and unique expertise provided by civil society to thematic and country-specific resolutions.

We reiterate that the EU will continue to support human rights defenders and civil society organisations and will continue to ensure and enhance their full, effective and meaningful participation in all UN processes, while ensuring their safety. We fully support the efforts of Assistant Secretary-General Brands Kehris in addressing reprisals and other threats against civil society representatives and human rights defenders. Such threats are unacceptable, and have no place at the UN.

The hybrid format of the Third Committee continued to pose significant challenges. Virtual negotiations, in some cases, prevented further progress. There is also a real need to increase the added value of the Interactive Dialogues. The merger of dedicated thematic statements into one single statement at the general debate prevented some Member States from elaborating on progress and expectations related to important human rights fields, such as gender equality, crime, indigenous peoples, and others. The hybrid format also posed significant obstacles to the meaningful participation of civil society in our work.

We welcome the decision to re-open the doors of the UN to civil society, and believe that the measures in place are an important step towards their safe, in-person participation in all relevant meetings of the General Assembly and other bodies.

Nous soulignons l’importance du multilinguisme aux Nations Unies. Valeur cardinale, le multilinguisme est aussi gage d’inclusivité pour la société civile. Nous saluons à ce titre les efforts du président pour permettre l’interprétation dans cette réunion.

The EU and its Member States further see the need to biennalise more resolutions to rationalize the work of the Committee. We must ensure an appropriate balance between resolutions and that new resolutions add value.

Chair,

The voice of civil society, especially NGOs and human rights defenders enrich the work of our Committee but they too often remain on the side-lines. The Third Committee should not be less open to NGOs than the Human Rights Council and the other Geneva-based human rights mechanisms.

Today's meeting is a small step towards correcting this imbalance, and we would welcome a more in-depth reflection on this issue.

We look forward to a continued close cooperation with civil society organisations and human rights defenders in preparation of the next Third Committee, and during the forthcoming commissions, events and conferences, including the CSW66.

Thank you.

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