Mr. President, Excellencies, colleagues,

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

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

Allow me to express our deep appreciation to the leadership and tireless dedication of the two co-chairs of the Ad-Hoc-Working Group on GA Revitalisation, the PR of El Salvador, H.E. Embajdora Egriselda Lopez, and the former PR of Australia, H.E. Ambassador Mitch Fifield, for steering an ambitious resolution to a consensual outcome.

We have managed to make progress across the four building blocks of the resolution.

I would like to highlight six specific examples:

1. We have agreed to further streamlining of the GA agenda, including via a voluntary pledge to limit the number of side-events, in particular during High-Level-Week. The first test case of our commitment is only 2 weeks away. Let us ensure that the text of this resolution and this pledge actually makes it into the briefing pack of our principals, and that this pledge is actually abided by.

2.  We have agreed to provide the necessary reinforcements to the office of the PGA, putting him – and hopefully very soon ‘her’ again – in the position to cope with the largely increased number of mandates and processes the PGA and his office has to oversee.

3. We have collectively made further advances towards gender equality, both by supporting the PGA to ensure gender balance when it comes to High-Level speakers and panellist as well as a renewed call to all of us, Member States, to nominate female candidates for the position of the PGA.  Nevertheless, it is regrettable that only 4 out of 78 PGAs were women so far! It was also disappointing that the excellent proposal by the co-chairs to bring the rules of procedure in line with today’s realities failed to get the necessary consensus.

4. We have also made some further progress towards improving the transparency & accountability of the SG selection process, but could have done more to lay the ground for the process that will determine the next Secretary-General.

5. We have recognized the GA’s elevated role in peace and security, thanks also to projects such as the veto initiative, and the need for close interaction with the Security Council in this area; 

6. And last but not least, we eventually managed to include strong language on improved accessibility to the UN.

We believe this success is something to build upon for the next resolution two years from now.

We thank you.