EU Statement – United Nations 2nd Committee: Third Informal Dialogue on Revitalisation

07.05.2020
New York

7 May 2020, New York – Statement by the European Union and its Member States at the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly Second Committee Third Informal Dialogue on Revitalisation

Dear Chairman,

I have the honour to deliver this statement on behalf of the EU and its Member States.

The Candidate Countries Turkey, the Republic of North Macedonia*, Montenegro*, Serbia* and Albania*, the country of the Stabilisation and Association Process and potential candidate Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, and Georgia, align themselves with this statement.

The European Union and its Member States thank you for your leadership on this important file and for organising this Third Informal Dialogue on 2C revitalisation.

2C revitalisation has been on the agenda for a long time. As the COVID-19 crisis continues to unfold, the social and economic impact of the pandemic has already proven to be unprecedented. It has provided us with an additional and exceptionally strong argument of why the 2030 Agenda should serve as an anchor and inspiration for any future work of the Committee, especially now that we have entered the Decade of Action towards the achievement of the SDGs by 2030. We need to have room and space on the agenda to deal with new and emerging issues and threats, such as COVID-19. Re-organizing and re-focusing the Committee’s work, in particular its resolutions, is of crucial importance. We would like to stress that we cannot continue business as usual, especially under the current circumstances. The EU believes the time to book some actual progress is now.

Mr. Chairman,

The EU is ambitious in revitalizing the Second Committee. We took good note of the convergences, as well as, the divergences of position reflected in your synopsis. There are a lot of good proposals on the table. We however understand from the synopsis paper that only a step by step approach to revitalizing the 2C might be feasible.

The EU and its MS would like to request the Chair of the Second Committee to draft a decision, taking into account the areas where there is convergence of positions and, in that respect, be as ambitious as possible. The document should then be subject to negotiations among delegations, preferably in a small group setting that includes all the interested delegations, and, after finalization of discussions, should be adopted in the form of a decision: this would give ownership to all UN MS, make it legitimate and, most importantly, it would trigger accountability for respecting it.  Action on this decision or resolution containing basic consensual ideas should be taken by the summer, in order to implement it by the fall.

Mr. Chairman,

We thank you for providing us with the synopsis of contributions received to your letter of March 19. Regrettably, the synopsis of contributions document does not include all the very concrete proposals that many delegations, including the European Union, made during the Second Informal Dialogue on February 14.  I will not repeat all these proposals, but limit myself to repeating that they included addressing overlaps and duplications, reducing the number of resolutions and reports through refocusing and merging resolutions as well as reducing the periodicity of the resolutions and joint reporting.  These proposals are still very much on the table.  We hope that progress can be booked here as well. We are eager to hear from other delegations, especially the G77 as a group, as well as its individual members who propose their own individual resolutions. We would like to look at the resolutions in a fair and transparent way that takes into account the interests of all member states, so we can achieve progress together.

Excellency, let me reassure you that the EU stands ready to support you in revitalizing the Second Committee. However, if we fail to do so together, the EU will need to revisit its approach towards specific resolutions in the upcoming Second Committee.

I thank you.


* The Republic of North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Albania continue to be part of the Stabilisation and Association Process.