Chair,

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union and its Member States. I will not reiterate all the points made in our previous interventions, which, however, remain valid.

The EU and its Member States thank you for calling today’s consultations. The fact that this is the fifth round of open-ended consultations in six weeks demonstrates that we have had an open and very intensive process. We are grateful to you, Chair, and your team for your tireless efforts to identify a viable and affordable solution that would merit consensus. We also thank the Secretariat for all its work in this connection and for the enlightening information contained in the non-papers dated 8, 13 and 15 December. We underline our full confidence in the IAEA Director General and the Secretariat as regards the implementation of the IAEA Staff Regulations, International Civil Service Commission (ICSC) rules and other relevant financial regulations. We take note of the progress made in New York to amend the ICSC Statute, thereby removing any possible ambiguity and clarifying the existing provisions which serve as a basis for the continuous practice applied by the Agency’s Secretariat, the Director General and his predecessors.

Let me recall that the EU and its Member States attach strong importance to the activities of the IAEA across the spectrum of its mandate. We remain committed to ensuring that the Agency is sufficiently and sustainably resourced, effective and efficient and able to meet its legal obligations, statutory tasks and the increasing demands of Member States in its core mandate areas.

The EU and its Member States therefore regret that there is still no consensus on your proposal as contained in GOV/2022/74. We support this proposal and strongly encourage others to do the same. Adopting an updated budget and Technical Cooperation Fund (TCF) target before the end of the year will ensure that the Agency can continue to carry out its programme and deliver Technical Cooperation projects as decided by IAEA Member States. We believe this would be in the interest of all IAEA Member States. We therefore encourage those Member States who are not yet in a position to support the proposal to make every effort to enable us to take a decision expeditiously.

Chair,

We continue to stand ready to engage constructively with a view to reaching consensus as soon as possible based on your proposal. We are prepared to look at possible wording to address remaining issues. Again, we thank the Secretariat for the clarifications previously provided on the impact of the Agency’s participation in the UN Common System, which we support. 

Finally, we reiterate our call on all Member States to pay their assessed contributions in full and on time. The current shortfall stems from various factors including high inflation that has an impact on the IAEA’s purchasing power, but also from arrears which amount to €55.7 million as of 30 September 2022. In order to help address the current budgetary difficulties, the EU urges countries in arrears to meet their obligations expeditiously.

Thank you, Chair.