Mr. President/Chair,

I am delivering this statement on behalf of the European Union and its Member States.

The Candidate Countries North Macedonia*, Montenegro*, Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina^* and Georgia, and the EFTA countries Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, members of the European Economic Area, as well as San Marino, align themselves with this statement.

We engaged in these discussions guided by a spirit of dialogue. However, this resolution raises major procedural and substantive concerns that were not addressed. These were explained in detail in a letter sent to the facilitator on our common behalf on 4 June 2025. For this reason the EU and its Member States cannot support the resolution.

Without being exhaustive, we would limit ourselves here to three of these concerns.

First, the topic of so-called ‘UCMs’ is highly divisive and polarizing, as the general debate earlier today attested yet again. It is therefore not suitable for an international day that is supposed to bring together the international community as a whole. Instead at a time when unity and cooperation is absolutely necessary and clearly missing, it sows the seeds of further disunity and division. Besides, one should not lose sight of the fact that some of the co-sponsors of the resolution impose unilateral economic pressure on other countries or adopt sanctions, often without any transparency, due process guarantees, or international legal justification, putting into further question the motives of this initiative.

Secondly, this initiative is at odds with ongoing efforts to revitalize the General Assembly and make it—and the UN in general—more efficient and effective. It directly contradicts both the letter and the spirit of last year’s GA resolution 78/329 that explicitly biennialized the consideration of this agenda item, by instead seeking to inject into the UN’s work an additional annual discussion and debate on the exact same topic. Should this resolution be adopted, the already overstretched human and capital resources of the UN and Member States will have to be further burdened for no additional benefit.

Third and last, contrary to the suggestions of its proponents, the resolution is far from a mere “procedural text” as it goes well beyond established language that has been agreed previously. It espouses a blanket and generic condemnation of autonomous sanctions as “contrary to international law” (PP5), which is legally incorrect, and accuses them singularly and falsely as impeding the achievement of sustainable development. In doing so, it ignores the multitude of inhibitors to sustainable development and risks politicising a key UN priority.

In sum, we fully support the UN membership’s engagement on the matter on the basis of a truly open and constructive approach rather than on initiatives that could foment further polarization and division. 

In light of the above, we urge the UN membership to vote against this resolution. 

Thank you, Chair. 

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