EU Statement – UN General Assembly 2nd Committee: General Debate
(check against delivery)
Excellencies, distinguished delegates,
I have the honour to deliver this statement on behalf of the European Union and its Member States.
The Candidate Countries Türkiye, North Macedonia, Montenegro*, Albania*, Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina* and Georgia, as well as Armenia, Andorra, Monaco, and San Marino align themselves with this statement.
Let me begin by congratulating your Excellency, Ambassador Janina, on your appointment as Chair of the Second Committee, as well as the other members of the Bureau. Please rest assured of our full support.
As we convene for the 81st session of the General Assembly, the international community faces a complex and increasingly challenging landscape, both outside and within the UN system.
Conflicts, acts of aggression, terrorism, poverty, persistent inequalities, food insecurity, health risks, shrinking fiscal space, fiscal pressure, debt distress, the acceleration of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution threaten to reverse years of hard-won development progress. Technology and especially AI represent opportunities for progress but at the same time present their own challenges and risks.
Colleagues, multilateralism is under immense strain. It is going through a crisis of trust, marked by deepening polarization, and a lack of efficiency and representation. This is undermining our collective ability to respond effectively to shared challenges and to deliver meaningful results. These challenges necessitate more than technical fixes. They require effective multilateral cooperation, grounded in the principles of the UN Charter, and the broader framework of international law -- in particular international humanitarian and human rights law. More so than ever.
Yet, let us not give in to cynicism.
The Second Committee has a strong tradition of consensus-building and practical cooperation. While we recognise that viewpoints and opinions on individual issues can and do differ, joint action and consensus do remain achievable.
Important global commitments undertaken last year, including the Sevilla Commitment and its Platform for Action, the Ocean Conference and the World Social Summit are such concrete examples of it.
Colleagues, the EU and its Member States remain fully committed to the 2030 Agenda, the overarching global framework for sustainable development. We also reiterate commitments undertaken in the Pact for the Future. Putting this in practice, the EU’s Global Gateway, fully aligned with the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals, is delivering hundreds of billions in sustainable investments to improve infrastructure, health, education, innovation and research systems.
In this main session of the Second Committee we will be guided by the following three key considerations:
First, accelerating implementation of shared commitments. At the opening of this 2C session, the international community finds itself in front of a steep uphill. The stakes could not be higher. As the year 2030 is fast approaching, 32% of the SDG targets are still either stagnating or regressing, and only 36% are on track or showing moderate progress.
At the same time, our common efforts to achieve the SDGs have already successfully driven historic progress. We have expanded access to clean water for millions, measurably reduced extreme poverty and child mortality rates as well as rapidly expanded renewable energy. The SDGs have proven to be a powerful catalyst for tangible global progress.
Our focus must now remain steadily on accelerating implementation through to 2030, leaving no one behind. Progress will require determination, political will, sustained cooperation and collective action to deliver. We need an integrated and coherent approach to sustainable development, addressing the interlinkages between the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development.
The Sevilla Commitment provides a renewed global framework for financing sustainable development. The priority now must be its timely implementation, mobilising financing from all sources, including, inter alia, domestic resources and private investment. Resources must be accompanied and supported by strong, transparent and accountable institutions.
While thinking about the post-2030 agenda will no doubt start in earnest, this should not detract from today’s work or diminish ambition for 2030. This main session of the Second Committee will be the last before next year’s SDG Summit, the final major milestone before 2030. We must use this opportunity to accelerate action and deliver meaningful results in the years that remain.
Second, this past year, marked by yet another wave of record-high temperatures and climate disasters, has made it abundantly clear that we must double down on tackling the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.
We are dangerously approaching the 1.5°C limit. This “perfect storm” is no longer simply knocking at our doors, it is breaking them down, flooding our homes, drying out our crops, forcing people to flee and wiping out entire villages in a matter of minutes.
Climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, as well as the water crisis and land degradation are severe constraints on development. They aggravate and compound upon existing vulnerabilities. They devastate lives and livelihoods. Their most dire impacts are felt the hardest by the most vulnerable. The Paris Agreement and its objectives must remain the cornerstone of our collective action. We need to advance on closing the ambition gap, through the submission of the missing NDCs and continued mobilization towards the just, orderly and equitable transition away from fossil fuels. Clean transition is central to ensuring energy security, affordability, and availability for all while strengthening energy system resilience and reducing strategic dependencies. We need to enhance our adaptive capacities, scale-up early warning systems to protect the most vulnerable. We need to ensure that the UN and its membership play their part in combatting these existential crises and support the just green transition while promoting economic growth and fostering resilience in all parts of the world. Building on our success in decoupling economic growth from greenhouse gas emissions, the EU will continue to lead and advocate for global climate action. The EU and its MS are also the foremost contributor to climate finance, living up to our commitments, as a matter of global solidarity and of leaving no one behind.
In that respect, just like we did at the UNCCD COP17, the EU and its Member States look forward to participating fully and effectively, in upcoming important meetings and summits, including the CBD COP17, the UNFCCC COP31, the first international conference of the Global Framework on Chemicals, the UN Water Conference and the BBNJ Agreement COP1. We must redouble our efforts across all of these opportunities and translate commitments into action.
Third, we must live up to our commitments to work more efficiently through this Committee. To remain effective and relevant, we must improve how we work. Recent revitalization decisions aimed at ensuring the relevance and functioning of the UN General Assembly as well as decisions specifically by and for this Committee should be put in practice to ensure that the Second Committee remains effective and relevant. Fewer, shorter, and more strategically focused, long-term and action-oriented resolutions will be far more effective than duplicating mandates and spreading resources thin. Resolutions should have clear objectives, avoid duplication and be subject to regular review. Outdated or ineffective mandates should be revised or discontinued. This will help the UN development pillar and the Second Committee remain credible, relevant and resilient. The EU and its Member States are as committed to the future functioning of the UN as we have been for the past 81 years. We stand ready to reflect this on the work and areas of responsibility of the Second Committee, as a matter of priority.
More broadly, the Second Committee must be part of the overall effort to make the UN system relevant, fit for purpose, and able to deliver concrete outcomes for people and the planet. It is necessary to promote the effectiveness and impact of the system in order to preserve it, based on a results-oriented approach. Revitalisation, rationalisation, and prioritisation must be more than rhetoric to ensure sustainability of the UN itself. All of us who lead in financing, politically supporting, partnering, and implementing sustainable development on the ground must seize the UN80 opportunity and identify and reduce duplications, overlaps, and streamline our actions within the UN development system.
Colleagues, with only four years remaining to deliver, the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals remain our common objective. At the same time, sustainable development can grow lasting roots only in peaceful, democratic, and inclusive societies, where human rights, gender equality and the rule of law are respected, governance is transparent, institutions are accountable, civic space is protected and justice is accessible to all. For countries affected by conflict, recovery and reconstruction should build resilience for the future, strengthen institutions and human capital, and enable them to build back better, greener and more inclusively. These principles are integral to the Agenda and to the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development.
Women can and must play an active role at all levels of decision-making. As agents of change, women play a key role in actively shaping and promoting transition and progress. Female entrepreneurs are a driving force for development and an engine of economic growth; greater participation by women in the economy is linked to higher growth rates. Sustainable economic development, resilience, and inclusive societies cannot be achieved without pursuing gender equality as a principle and a fundamental human right. Indeed, both the hard data and anecdotal evidence are clear and irrefutable: gender equality is not just the right thing to do. It’s the smart thing to do.
Chair, colleagues, two years after the adoption of the Pact for the Future and its ambition to "turbocharge the SDGs," the international community stands at a decisive moment on implementation of the 2030 Agenda. There is now an urgency of implementation, ambition, and determination. You can count on the EU and its Member States to contribute fully to the collective effort to achieve meaningful progress throughout this session.
Thank you.
- North Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina continue to be part of the Stabilisation and Association Process.