Mr. President,

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union and its 27 Member States.

The Candidate Countries the Republic of North Macedonia, Montenegro, 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.

We welcome today's session and would like to thank the President of the General Assembly and the co-facilitators, Russia and Cote D’Ivoire for their efforts.

Agreeing on the modalities for the High Level Meeting (HLM) today is an important milestone for the HLM and therefore we welcome the resolution.
 

Let me turn to the importance of civil society participation in this HLM, a high priority for the European Union. And the reason for us to table and co-sponsor together with others, in a broad cross-regional initiative – an amendment, which will provide not only more transparency, but aims at bringing back the power of decision taking on CSO participation to this Assembly.

Improving Global Road Safety is a matter of concern to all with an estimated 1.3 million people killed on the world’s roads every year and tens of millions seriously injured. Road traffic crashes are currently the number one killer of young people aged 15–29.

The UN Resolution has set a goal of reducing road traffic deaths and injuries by at least 50 per cent by 2030. All stakeholders need to join forces and share experience to help achieve this. CSO activities have played a crucial role for decades and contributed extensively, as demonstrated by their active participation in the 3rd Global Ministerial Conference in Stockholm 2020 and during the UN Global Road Safety Week in May 2021. CSOs influence decision-making through advocacy, provide essential capacity building in the global south and represent the voice of vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists, as well as the rights of crash victims.

The High Level meeting will discuss how to best improve global road safety with a view to addressing gaps and challenges as well as mobilizing political leadership and promoting multisectoral and multi-stakeholder collaboration. To inform us, we need to hear experiences from all involved. We cannot afford to have experiences unheard. We cannot afford to lack the support of any stakeholder when it comes to Road Safety.

Let us recall that the resolution explicitly foresees a role for multi-stakeholder collaboration including civil society. And yet, in our view, the current proposal fails to give space for meaningful participation from civil society.

The text of OP11 as it stands now, states that objections to organisations being included in the list, which the PGA draws up, must be made transparent and explained. The EU and its Member States, together with other delegations, have constantly raised strong concerns in various occasions to the way in which previous non-objection clauses have been abused. Rejections cannot be exercised in an arbitrary manner - the final decision on the list of CSOs must be one of the General Assembly itself, and not that of a single Member State.  

In our amendment, we therefore request that the final decision on the list of CSOs is made by the General Assembly - we want to bring back the power of decision to this Assembly.

Let me be clear on two issues: this is not about any decision taking of any CSO. It is about ensuring that all voices are heard and enable broad experience sharing. We are convinced that the UN / the Assembly has no reason to be afraid of hearing all voices for taking our decisions.  And let me underline that we would have favoured a more open clause for CSO participation - as we proposed in the negotiations of this resolution. But we listened carefully to delegations to whom a right of objection is important. In this spirit of compromise, this amendment was drafted together with a broad cross-regional coalition. This amendment also constitutes a return to well-established modalities of previous years in the UN.

Thank you.