Mr. Chair,

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

The Candidate Countries Turkey, North Macedonia*, Montenegro^*, and Albania^*, the country of the Stabilisation and Association Process and potential candidate Bosnia and Herzegovina, the European Free Trade Association country and member of the European Economic Area Liechtenstein, as well as Andorra, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova, Monaco, San Marino, and Ukraine align themselves with this statement.

At the outset, let me express the European Union and its Member States’ full solidarity with Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. The European Union recalls the resolution “Aggression against Ukraine” adopted by an overwhelming majority during the UN General Assembly's 11th emergency special session on Wednesday. We condemn in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine, which grossly violates international law and the Charter of the United Nations, and undermines international security and stability. We stand by Ukraine and reiterate our unwavering commitment to its sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders. We are deeply alarmed and horrified by the human impact of the ongoing military aggression and of the indiscriminate attacks, killing innocent civilians, including children, and forcing millions to flee their homes. We deplore the senseless loss of life and call for unimpeded access for humanitarian assistance. Protection of civilians in line with international law must remain our utmost priority.

Mr. Chair,

Let me first thank you and the members of the Bureau for your continued engagement and guidance in the work of the Fifth Committee. Allow me to extend our gratitude to the members of the Secretariat, in particular the 5C-team, for enabling our work so we can adopt the best decisions for the Organization, its staff, and the peoples it serves, now more than ever.

I would like to congratulate the newly appointed members of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions and its chair upon his re-election. The Member States of the European Union are concerned with the increasing number of recommendations seemingly lacking underlying technical basis. We trust that the ACABQ Chair and its members will collectively do their utmost to ensure that the advisory committee fulfils its technical mandate: the neutral, evidence-based, and transparent expertise that the Advisory Committee should provide, as well as the timeliness of its reports, are instrumental to enrich the discussions and work of our Committee.

Allow me also to congratulate the Islamic Republic of Pakistan on assuming the Chairmanship of the Group of 77 and China. We look forward to enhancing the excellent collaboration we have maintained with the precedent chairs of the Group, whom we would like to thank for their efforts for continued, trustful, and constructive cooperation.

Mr. Chair, I would like to start by addressing our programme of work.

During this session, our Committee will resume consideration of several critical items for the United Nations' efficient and effective functioning. We would like to highlight three areas of particular importance in this regard.

1. We have yet to reach an agreement on Human Resources Management and cannot continue to defer our decision: UN staff are instrumental to deliver the Organization’s mandates while upholding its principles and values. It is high time we guaranteed them an updated and improved labour framework, and adopted modern and effective human resources policies that meet the current and future needs of the Organization. We are encouraged by the significant progress made last March, the first session to focus predominantly on HRM, in an effort to move this item forward. Building upon these efforts, the European Union and its Member States will endeavour to find consensus on all aspects of the HRM package.

2. Conversely, we are concerned with recent attempts to undercut the independence of supervisory bodies and hamper their investigations. We reiterate our strong commitment towards a robust accountability framework. A cornerstone of Management Reform, and an integral part of the delegation of authority, accountability of the Secretariat, but also from all stakeholders, is key to foster a culture of ethics and transparency, and to prevent and address any type of misconduct.

3. Last but not least, our Committee will consider measures to improve the UN liquidity situation, and to fund the after service health insurance. We need to resist temptation to postpone important items. Together we should strive for the adoption of responsible solutions to these long-term structural issues.

Mr. Chair, allow me now to address the question of our working methods.

The Organization relies on our Committee to ensure its proper functioning, not least through the funding of its mandates. With this in mind, the European Union and its Member States would like to reiterate our full support to the improvement of our working methods, with a view to conducting our proceedings in a more efficient manner and adopting high-quality resolutions.

This session is short and circumstances dictate it will, yet again, be remote. However, past sessions have demonstrated that the Fifth Committee is resilient and can adapt efficiently to continue to fulfil its mandates. We continue to believe that consensus needs to remain the fundamental creed of our Committee. We therefore encourage all to remain engaged in order to avoid falling back to default options or deferral. To this end, we reiterate our request for a solution to allow proper multilingualism in our proceedings: inclusive debates are the key to qualitative decisions. We should all endeavour to make good use of the supplementary information available so not to overburden the Secretariat with redundant questions. We should also stand ready to engage earnestly, sooner, and avoid posturing or the artificial linkage of items. The European Union and its Member States pledge to do so, in a spirit of constructive cooperation, consensus and collegiality.

I thank you, Mr. Chair.

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