EU Presidency Statement - Report of the UN Secretary-General on the Work of the Organisation

EU Presidency Statement on Item 110: Report of the Secretary General on the Work of the Organisation by H.E. Sir Emyr Jones Parry, Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations, on behalf of the European Union, at the 60th Session of the General Assembly, New York

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union. The Acceding countries Bulgaria and Romania, the Candidate countries Turkey and Croatia*, the countries of the Stabilisation and Association Process and potential candidates Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, EFTA country Norway, as well as Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova align themselves with this declaration.

1. The European Union thanks the Secretary-General for his comprehensive report on the work of the Organisation during one of its busiest years ever: a year culminating in the achievements and decisions of the World Summit. The Summit Outcome is a clear mandate for change, addressing challenges that the world has long faced. The range of those challenges outlined in the Secretary-General's report, although it was published before the summit, vividly illustrates how essential it is that we implement the Summit's decisions.

2. I would therefore like to respond to the Secretary-General by describing how the EU hopes the Summit will equip the UN better to meet the challenges outlined in the main sections of his report.

3. First, peace and security. Not only are development, security and human rights each imperative in their own right, they are mutually reinforcing. We cannot enjoy development without security. We cannot enjoy security without development. And we will not enjoy either without respect for human rights. These interelationships were at the heart of the SG's vision of Larger Freedom. Individual countries can only develop in a secure global environment. We have seen time and time again how conflict and instability in developing countries have destroyed fragile social, environmental and economic progress. The threats of terrorism and proliferation endanger the stable global environment within which trade flourishes and economies grow.

4. The Summit agreement to establish a Peacebuilding Commission will make a major contribution to a better co-ordinated international response to the needs of countries emerging from conflict. It will help prevent conflicts from restarting and encourage countries to make the transition from violent instability to peaceful, sustained development. The EU is committed to seeing the Commission established by the end of the year.

5. Increasingly, conflict and violence takes place beyond the boundaries of conventional war. In July, the EU again suffered the horror of a major terrorist atrocity. This time, the target was London. But no continent is safe from the threat of terror. International terrorism requires an international response; we pay the price for each others' vulnerabilities.

6. The United Nations has already done much to set international standards against terrorism and to encourage and help States to meet them. The EU welcomes the Summit Outcome's clear condemnation of terrorism and the undertaking to conclude a comprehensive convention on international terrorism during this 60th session. The EU firmly believes that the targeting and deliberate killing of civilians and non-combatants cannot be justified or legitimised by any cause or grievance.

7. The EU regrets the Summit's failure to reach agreement on measures for non-proliferation and disarmament. In his speech to the NPT Review conference, the Secretary General gave stark warning of the catastrophic global impact of any such use. We should heed his words. At the conference the international community made clear its continued commitment to the non-proliferation regime and to disarmament.

8. Second, development. The Summit provided the foundation for strengthening the global partnership between developed and developing countries set out at Monterrey. The EU has set a timetable to reach new levels of Official Development Assistance. By 2010, this will account for 0.56 per cent of the EU's collective Gross National Income - an annual additional 20 billion Euros. By 2015 it will reach 0.7 per cent. And EU member states recently agreed to support the G8 agreement to write off debt. In addition, the Summit recognised the value of developing innovative sources of financing. This scaled up financing is vital in our joint endeavour to reach the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

9. Sub-Saharan Africa is not on target to reach many of the MDGs for over 100 years and on some - including hunger and sanitation - the situation is actually going backwards. At least 50 per cent of the increase in EU aid resources, therefore, will go to Africa; in plain terms this means a doubling of EU aid to Africa over the next five years. Our leaders at the summit recognised the need for special attention to Africa's development. We now need to follow up on our commitments.

10. More aid on its own will not be enough. The real engines for making poverty history will be developing countries themselves. As important as increasing aid, is making sure that it is used better and more effectively. We need to drive up standards of governance and help the poorest people for whom support is most crucial. This means developing countries adopting ambitious national development strategies, creating and reinforcing good governance structures, fostering a positive environment for economic growth and helping the private sector flourish. We welcome the strong and comprehensive commitments made in this regard by the African countries through the African Union, and its NEPAD initiative. We also welcome UN support for these efforts, which the Secretary-General has highlighted in that part of his report dealing with the special needs of Africa.

11. As for trade, the EU believes that, through the Doha Round, the international community must deliver real gains. With a comprehensive, pro-development agenda, combining trade liberalisation with rule-making and complementary aid for trade and trade related assistance, the Doha Round can bring benefits to all trading partners and in particular developing countries. We should all make efforts for the successful conclusion of the WTO Doha Round. The Hong Kong WTO Ministerial Meeting later this year is an opportunity not to be missed.

12. The international community of today owes it to future generations to ensure that development, in rich and poor countries alike, is sustainable in economic, social and environmental terms. Much more needs to be done to protect the natural resource base, change unsustainable patterns of consumption and production and safeguard the Earth's biodiversity. The EU welcomes the Summit's recognition of the need to meet the commitments and obligations undertaken in the UNFCCC, and remains fully convinced that the UNFCCC is the appropriate forum for negotiating future action on climate change. The EU is firmly committed to urgent global action to mitigate climate change - a serious, long-term challenge for every part of the world. The EU welcomes the Summit's decision to explore the possibility of a more coherent framework and more efficient environmental activities in the UN system, including through a more integrated structure. We are looking forward to see discussions on this issue start in the near future.

13. Third, improving international architecture for humanitarian response and operational activities. The response to the appalling tsunami in the Indian Ocean in December demonstrated the willingness of governments, civil society and the private sector to respond rapidly and generously to an unprecedented crisis. But in other areas of the world, longstanding humanitarian crises continue. Sudan, Northern Uganda and the DRC continue to illustrate that we must do better. At an operational level, the EU is determined to see improvements to the predictability of humanitarian funding and capacity and to standby arrangements, inter alia through the modernisation of the Central Emergency Revolving Fund.

14. The current reforms to operational activities, which will bring the various UN agencies and programmes working in one country together under a single leader and common management, are good. We look forward to the Secretary-General's further work on strengthening the management and co-ordination of operational activities to make an even more effective contribution to the achievement of the MDGs.

15. Fourth, the international legal order and human rights. The Secretary General has said that we will achieve neither development nor security without respect for human rights. Over fifty years the UN has had remarkable success. It has built a framework of international human rights law that sets clear standards by which all states are judged. As has long been recognised, however, when those standards are breached, we have not always done enough. The EU welcomes the unprecedented recognition of the international community's responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing or crimes against humanity.

16. The Summit took two other important steps towards creating more effective human rights machinery at the UN: the decision to establish a Human Rights Council, and the commitment to reinforcing the role and doubling the resources of the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights. Protection and promotion of human rights has been reinforced as the third pillar of the UN's work, alongside development and peace and security. The EU will work with the President of the General Assembly and all interested delegations to complete, as soon as possible during this 60th session, negotiations on the mandate, modalities, functions, size, composition, membership, and working methods of the new Council.

17. Here the EU reiterates its strong support for the International Criminal Court. We are glad that the Relationship Agreement between the UN and the ICC is now in force, and we hope that the UN's cooperation will facilitate the functioning of the Court. Like the Secretary-General, we welcome the fact that the Security Council decided to refer the situation in Darfur since 1 July 2002 to the Court. We believe this will help contribute to our common objective of ending impunity and establishing the rule of law in post-conflict or crisis situations.

18. On Secretariat and management reform. The EU welcomes the decisions on management reform taken at the Summit and will pursue their implementation vigorously in this session. There needs to be a modernised approach to management in the UN based on strengthened accountability, greater transparency and more efficient working practices. It is vital that the UN's resources are channelled to the areas of greatest need and impact. The EU welcomes the Summit decision on the review of mandates. The Secretary-General needs the authority and flexibility to carry out his managerial responsibility and to redeploy resources from lower to higher priority areas.

19. The EU underscores the importance of UN system-wide coherence for the effective functioning of the UN system. Full use of the UN system's expertise and resources to support the achievement of the MDG is vital. Therefore, the EU wholeheartedly supports stronger system-wide coherence, starting with implementing the measures identified at the Summit to promote coherence of policy, operational activities, humanitarian assistance and environmental activities.

20. The EU is committed to ensuring the availability of adequate resources for the UN, while adhering to our long-standing principle of budgetary discipline. We will therefore seek to adopt an appropriate budget for 2006-07 that will enable the UN to deliver meaningful results in all its activities, including new mandates agreed by the Summit. Given the need for urgent renovation to make the UN Headquarters in New York safe, we need agreement on a comprehensive Capital Master Plan during this session.

21. I would like to conclude by thanking the Secretary-General and all the staff of the UN for the work they have done this year, often in difficult or dangerous circumstances. We hope that our actions and decisions taken here in the General Assembly, to follow up our collective decisions at the Summit, will both strengthen the Organisation and enable it to achieve its objectives more fully. If that happens, this year will indeed mark a milestone in the history of the UN.


*Croatia continues to be part of the Stabilisation and Association Process.

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• EU Presidency Statement - Strengthening the Role of the UN  (14/10/2005)
• European Community Statement - UN High Level Meeting (16/9/2005)
• EU-UN relations (12/9/2005)