EU Statement – United Nations Security Council: UN Peacekeeping Operations & their potential contribution to the overarching goal of sustaining peace

Mr. President,

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the EU and its Member States.

The Candidate Countries Turkey, the former Yugoslav Republic of 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.

We thank the Presidency for organising today’s debate.

This Council has clearly defined that ‘sustaining peace’ involves all stages of the conflict cycle and should flow through all three pillars of the United Nations’ engagement.

Today, we are faced with a rising number of violent conflicts around the world. Crisis situations tend to last longer, are driving human insecurity on a vast scale, have become increasingly complex and volatile, and most of them take place in contexts that have experienced conflict before. The failure to sustain peace is at the heart of the question why we are faced with this multifaceted challenge, calling for unprecedented international cooperation and action.

Tackling rising global insecurity is a pressing imperative. But how do we get better at meeting this challenge? How do we craft a more coherent and more effective response across the conflict continuum and tailor it to the specific context? How do we mainstream sustaining peace across the United Nations’ action, including its peacekeeping operations?

Mr President,

First, our priority should be to pursue political solutions. The peace and security reviews of 2015 have underlined that conflict prevention and resolution is an inherently political and comprehensive process in which preventive foreign policy plays a pivotal role. Peace can only be sustained through locally-owned comprehensive agreements rooted in broad, deep and durable regional and international partnerships.

The EU reiterates the need to invest in upstream conflict prevention whilst also planning for sustaining peace beyond peacekeeping engagement, recognizing that peacekeeping and special political missions remain at the core of the United Nations’ mandate. The right policy mix of conflict prevention, mediation, building and strengthening resilience, peacekeeping, stabilisation, peacebuilding and humanitarian assistance must serve the objective of sustaining peace. Peacekeeping operations must be and must be seen as a key ingredient of the policy mix available to the UN.

Peacekeeping is a unique and invaluable feature of the United Nations. However, peacekeeping is not an end in itself. It is a means to an end, namely a means to move towards sustainable peace. Therefore, peacekeeping mandates must evolve consistently in line with the context and changing needs on the ground which means operations, and special political missions, must remain flexible and open to adaptation throughout their life cycle to best deliver stabilisation and peacebuilding.

Secondly, this Council’s ambition for sustaining peace and the UN Secretary-General’s broad vision on conflict prevention fully resonate with the European approach to security, and in particular with the Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy.

This Global Strategy is guided by the values on which the European Union is founded –in particular the principles of the UN Charter. These principles ensure peace, human rights, sustainable development and lasting access to the global commons. Therefore, we strive for a strong UN as the bedrock of the multilateral rules-based order. And peacekeeping missions are a prime example of global coordination among international and regional organisations, states and non-state actors.

Our Global Strategy emphasises the importance of acting promptly on prevention, whilst also responding responsibly and decisively to crises, investing in the resilience of states and societies, and avoiding premature disengagement when a new crisis erupts. The Global Strategy also promises that the EU will engage in a practical and principled way in sustaining peace, taking an integrated approach to conflict and crises that brings to bear all the tools at our disposal. As conflicts have multiple dimensions – from security to gender, from governance to the economy – it remains essential, both for the EU and for the UN, to take a multi-dimensional approach to their prevention or resolution through the use of all available policies and instruments.

This Council and the General Assembly have both agreed that sustaining peace is the joint responsibility of governments and societies, and should be supported by the international community. With the EU’s integrated approach and resilience policy, we will become a more effective actor in our own right and partner in international action, including with the UN. These approaches help mitigate the complex, multi-sectoral challenges we all face today, be that at the UN, the EU or elsewhere. Peacekeeping operations must form an organic part of a coherent and integrated UN response. In this context, the Council should ensure that longer-term peacebuilding is included in mission mandates, along with reflections on how to design transitions and strengthen the advisory role of the Peacebuilding Commission. Better integration and collaboration between peace operations, sustainable development policies and the UN country teams is also an absolute priority.

Thirdly, the EU reconfirms its support to the UN Secretary-General’s ambition to create a well-coordinated institutional structure to provide a holistic UN HQ approach to crisis management and sustaining peace. The Secretariat must act as one, building upon the lessons of the past years and past reforms, while taking into account the specificities of all the facets of its work on the ground. We also advocate that field deployments and decision making on the ground should correspond to operational objectives. We have to continue on the path to modernisation and effectiveness of peace operations, recognising – once again – that peacekeeping missions and special political missions are at the core of the UN`s mandate

Lastly, let me address today’s topic from the perspective of the ever closer partnership between the EU and the UN in crisis management. This partnership is highlighted explicitly in the Global Strategy – and I quote: “Believing in the UN means investing in it, notably in its peacekeeping, mediation, peacebuilding and humanitarian functions.”

The EU has been very active in the field of peace and security, and we have been engaged in an ever deepening collaboration between our two organisations to continue to ensure an efficient strategic cooperation and coherent action on the ground, and also to ensure that scarce resources are used in the most effective way possible. Our joint EU-UN Conflict Prevention Dialogue is helping strengthen our joint approach, and the EU continues to be a major supporter of the UN’s mediation capacities.

Operational cooperation between the EU and the UN is reaching new highs in Mali, in the Central African Republic and in other situations. Whenever the EU and UN are both present on the ground, cooperation between our respective missions is established from the outset. In addition to joint analysis and information-sharing between our two Organizations, we increasingly associate each other to the strategic reviews of our respective missions and operations. This helps us to realize complementarities and increase our potential for synergies, to enhance our respective and joint situational awareness, and to ensure that we work coherently across the conflict continuum.

Mr. President,

The imperative of sustaining peace runs across the complete cycle of our engagement. Peacekeeping represent a crucial lynchpin. What we need most is to translate this recognition into action. For its part, the EU will continue to strive towards a strong and continuously evolving partnership with the UN in promoting peacekeeping in the overall context of sustaining peace.

I thank you.

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