EU Presidency Statement - Promotion of religion and cultural understanding, harmony and cooperation

Mr. President,

I have the honour to take the floor on behalf of the European Union with regard to the resolution entitled "Promotion of religion and cultural understanding, harmony and cooperation" just adopted by this Plenary under Item 44 of the Agenda. The Acceding Countries Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia, the Candidate Countries Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey, the Countries of the Stabilisation and Association Process and potential candidates Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, the EFTA Countries member of the European Economic Area Iceland and Norway, declare that they align themselves with this statement.

The European Union believes firmly in tolerance, non-discrimination, freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief. The European Union also believes strongly in the value of a dialogue among civilization and the necessity for understanding and cooperation between different religions and cultures.

From the outset, however, the European Union was concerned that a further resolution of this nature would reproduce and overlap several existing related processes and initiatives already undertaken in this area.

Despite these reservations, the European Union engaged in a positive and constructive manner on the negotiations on this resolution. After its adoption by consensus by the General Assembly, we would like to sincerely thank Pakistan and all the other co-sponsors of this resolution for their flexibility during these negotiations and for having accepted many amendments proposed by the European Union.

While expressing satisfaction for some of the changes introduced in this resolution, the European Union would like to bring to the attention of this General Assembly its concern with regard to some parts of the text which still fail to refer adequately to the universality of human rights.

We believe the resolution should have more clearly reaffirmed the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion according to article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We are also of the opinion that the resolution should have focused more on the freedom of expression as described in article 19 of UDHR and article 19 of ICCPR. The European Union furthermore has some concerns about the concept of harmony in the resolution because it is a rather vague and ill-defined concept. The European Union would like to reiterate that this concept cannot and should not be read as limiting in any way the freedom of expression or the full enjoyment of all human rights by persons belonging to minorities, non-believers or any other individual.

Firmly confident that these aspects will be rightly reconsidered in the near future, we feel the need to restate that the European Union is fully committed to the principle that all human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated and that as such they constitute an international standard to which all States should comply. Indeed, this very notion is set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was proclaimed as "a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations".

The European Union remains therefore convinced that any action taken by States aimed at promoting and protecting the full enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms and action undertaken to prevent violations thereof, should be undertaken in conformity with the international human rights standards.

Thank you, Mr. President.

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