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Overview: the European Union at the United Nations

The presence-and representation-of the EU at the UN has multiple faces:

• the 27 EU Member States;
  
• the EU Presidency;
  
• the Council of the European Union;
  
• and the European Commission.

The EU Member States, the Council, and the Commission meet regularly to coordinate their positions on various issues. The EU Treaty requires them to uphold common positions so their collective weight can have more impact in the world.

Coordination now encompasses the six main committees of the General Assembly and its subordinate bodies, including ECOSOC and its subsidiary functional commissions. More than 1,000 internal EU coordination meetings are conducted each year in both New York and Geneva.

EU Member States work together with the Council and the Commission to prepare and finalize EU statements, and the Member State holding the Presidency presents the EU position to the General Assembly, whether in negotiations or debates, in the form of a Presidency statement. The European Community, represented by the European Commission, can also take the floor as a permanent observer at the General Assembly.

In cases involving trade, agriculture, and fisheries, the European Commission negotiates and makes statements at the UN on behalf of the EU and can also do so in other cases involving predominantly European Community competences.

EU candidate, potential candidate, and accession countries usually align themselves with EU statements. Commonly, almost one-sixth of UN Member States now align themselves with EU statements at the UNGA.

Together, the 27 EU Member States comprise more than one-eighth of all votes in the UN General Assembly. And EU member and candidate countries account for one-third of the UN Security Council's current membership.

EU Presidency and EU Council Secretariat

Because only States can be members of the UN, the EU is almost always represented by the Member State currently holding the rotating Presidency of the EU Council , which changes every six months.

To ensure continuity from one presidency to the next, the EU is also represented in the format of a troika comprised of the current and future presidencies, the Commission, and the EU Council in a certain number of contacts with partners in the UN. Since 1994, the EU Council Secretariat has had a New York Liaison Office and a Geneva secretariat.

Within the UN Security Council, EU positions are represented by sitting EU Member States, whether elected or permanent members.

European Commission

The European Community is represented by the European Commission, which has delegations accredited to UN bodies in Geneva, Paris, Nairobi, New York, Rome, and Vienna. The Commission's original information office in New York officially became a delegation to the UN in 1974, when it was granted observer status at the 29th General Assembly by Resolution 3208.

As an observer within the UN General Assembly and most UN specialised agencies, the European Community has no vote as such, but is a party to more than 50 UN multilateral agreements and conventions as the only non-State participant.

The EC acts on behalf of all EU Member States in areas such as trade and fisheries where powers have been transferred to it.

It has obtained special "full participant" status in many major UN conferences, from the Rio "Earth Summit" in 1992 onwards, and retains this status in standing bodies such as the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) and in the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF). In 1991, the European Community was accepted as a full member of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (Rome), the first time it had been recognised as a full voting member by a UN agency.

The EU's substantial contribution to the UN's work

The EU works with all UN bodies, agencies and programmes across virtually the entire range of UN activities, from development policy and peacebuilding, to humanitarian assistance, environment, human rights and culture, throughout the world.

EU Member States together are the largest financial contributor to the UN system. The EU pays 38% of the UN's regular budget, more than two-fifths of UN peacekeeping operations and about one-half of all UN Member States' contributions to UN funds and programmes. In 2005, the European Community contributed almost $1 billion to the UN system. The EU is proud to maintain its generous share of UN funding as a sign of support for the UN system.

To learn more, please see "The Enlarging European Union at the United Nations: Making multilateralism matter" (2004).

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