EU Presidency Statement - Major UN Conferences

Mr. President,

I am pleased to speak on behalf of the European Union. The Central and Eastern European countries associated with the European Union (Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) and the other associated countries (Cyprus, Malta and Turkey) align themselves with this statement.

The application of and follow-up to the results of the major conferences and of the summit meetings organized under the aegis of the United Nations during the 1990s has for several years been one of the priorities of the international community. It is no coincidence if this subject constitutes one of the main topics on the agenda for the Economic and Social Council this year since item 6, which is the subject of an annual examination, and item 10 on regional cooperation are also given over to it.

The European Union proposed the subject of this coordination segment last year for one simple reason: now that several five-yearly follow-up examinations of the conferences have already taken place, it seems necessary to make an initial review and examine whether the follow-up procedures adopted hitherto have made it possible to achieve the objectives assigned to them. In certain instances the results of these follow-up examinations have appeared to be quite modest in relation to the mobilization of administrative resources and the financial costs involved both for the States (in particular the developing countries) and for the United Nations.

In this respect the Secretary-General's report prepared for this coordination segment, which is of high quality, abounds in lessons for our discussion. It lists in a courageous and lucid manner the difficulties encountered during the "+5" examinations in recent years: a five-year period too short to be able to make a meaningful assessment of implementation policies, length of the process for negotiating final documents which is partially explained by attempts at renegotiating the results of the conferences themselves, lack of consistency between the texts of the "+5" examinations on certain transversal subjects, inadequate consideration of national reports and of the technical contribution from groups of experts, insufficient participation to the meetings by specialized institutions and by civil society, etc.

This finding tallies to a quite considerable degree with the European Union's analysis of the unsatisfactory nature to date of the follow-up procedure for conferences, and we would like this coordination segment to allow the Economic and Social Council to embark upon a constructive dialogue on ways of remedying the present shortcomings. Here again, the great merit of the Secretary-General's report is that it makes specific suggestions which go in the right direction.

Mr. President,

I would now like to share with you the European Union's views on this complex matter.

Firstly, we consider that it would be desirable to distinguish between two levels in the follow-up examinations of conferences: a technical and evaluation level which would be devoted to applying in each country the commitments entered into at conferences and which would be conducted within the functional commissions, and a political level aimed at setting new objectives and launching new initiatives. In some cases, it would seem necessary to retain regular monitoring. In other cases, we feel that the automatic holding at fixed intervals of a political meeting is not justified.

The organization of this type of follow-up examination should be decided on a case-by-case basis in line with the progress made towards attaining the objectives of the conferences and of the changes which might justify adjusting these objectives whenever impetus at political level seems necessary.

Secondly, we consider that the technical content of the follow-up examinations should be enhanced. The coherence of the various follow-up efforts at the national and regional levels needs to be enhanced as well. Increased use of the discussions of groups of experts and of new information technologies and closer involvement of the specialized institutions, the regional economic commissions and the Bretton Woods institutions could help here. Likewise, the participation of experts from the developing countries in meetings of the functional commissions should be strongly encouraged, if necessary (LDCs in particular) with the financial support of the developed countries.

Thirdly, the European Union would like to reiterate its attachment to the work done by a number of international organizations, in close cooperation with the States, with a view to formulating a coherent set of common indicators. Monitoring of the development of a small number of indicators, chosen on the basis of the objectives of the conferences, would be very useful to the functional commissions in evaluating the progress made. However, the provision by States of precise national reports and of reliable statistics is vital for the effectiveness of such a follow-up, which implies that all the parties involved, including bilateral and multilateral lenders, have to make a renewed effort in order to reinforce the administrative and statistical capacities of the developing countries, in particular the least developed countries.

Finally, experience acquired over the last month can only lead to support for the proposal which appears in the Secretary-General's report aimed at avoiding two or more follow-up reviews taking place in the same year. Bearing that in mind, the idea of organizing a composite follow-up of conferences with closely connected topics deserves to be studied in more detail.

Mr. President,

The European Union wishes to reiterate its commitment to doing its utmost to achieve the objectives of the major United Nations conferences. The at times critical evaluation we have been forced to make of the procedure for following up conferences in no way reflects a lack of interest on our part, but on the contrary the conviction that better organized and better targeted follow-up could enable the international community to achieve these objectives more rapidly. It is in this spirit that today we wanted to launch the discussion on this key subject and you may, Mr. President, rely on the European Union to make an open and constructive contribution to the success of this coordination segment.

Thank you for your attention.

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• EU Presidency Statement - Major UN conferences and summits (21/7/2000)