EU Presidency Statement - Closed Peacekeeping Missions

EU Presidency Statement on Item 136: Closed Peacekeeping Missions, by the Permanent Mission of the United Kingdom to the United Nations on behalf of the European Union, Fifth Committee, United Nations, New York

Thank you Mr Chairman.

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 & Herzegovina, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, EFTA countries Iceland and Liechtenstein, members of the European Economic Area, as well as the Republic of Moldova align themselves with this declaration.

We should like to thank Mr Warren Sach, Controller, and Mr Besley Maycock, Vice-Chair of ACABQ, for introducing their respective reports.

Mr Chairman, the European Union position on the state of the UN's financial situation was articulated in our formal statement on 20 October. In respect of returning to Member States' funds sitting in closed peacekeeping missions, the EU's long-standing position has also been made perfectly clear: the money, including accrued interest and other income, should be returned, in full and without conditions, to Member States.

We lament again the fact that, due to consistently late payments, essentially by the largest and a handful of other contributors, and even non-payment of assessed contributions by some Member States, the organisation is being forced to retain funds which should be returned to Member States.

The practice of cross-borrowing from the pool of funds retained in closed mission accounts in order to maintain the viability of the UN itself, the International Tribunals as well as active Peacekeeping Operations, simply masks the real issue of arrears, and the inability of this Committee to substantively address this problem. Until it does, troop contributing countries, many of who pay in full and on time, will not receive speedy or full reimbursement.

Mr Chairman

We note the statement by the Controller in respect of the cash-flow situation. We sympathise with the position in which he finds himself and the difficulties he faces in managing his myriad of budgets.

But the decision made in previous years by the General Assembly to allow these funds to be retained by the Secretary-General was made, in our opinion, on an exceptional basis. It should not be taken as given by the Secretary-General that such exceptions have become the norm.

The EU would question, given the dire financial straits in which the UN again finds itself, whether this Committee will be able to advance satisfactorily this issue during the main session. Should this item be deferred until our second resumed session, we would request that the SG more accurately reflect then, in an updated report, all the funds available to him and recommend additional courses of action other than simply retaining the funds.

Thank you Mr Chairman.


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

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• EU Presidency Statement - Comprehensive review of Peacekeeping Operations (21/10/2005)
• EU Presidency Statement - 5th Committee: Programme of Work (10/10/2005)
• Déclaration de la Présidence de l'Union européenne - Comité special des operations de maintien de la paix  (31/1/2005)