Erklärungen in internationalen Organisationen

EU Presidency Statement – Mandate Review

Informal Meeting of the Plenary of the General Assembly on Mandate Review; Statement by Ambassador Gerhard Pfanzelter, Permanent Representative of Austria to the United Nations, on behalf of the European Union

Mr. Chairman,

Following your invitation, I would like to make a few brief comments on the process for Mandate Review and the way forward on behalf of the European Union. The Acceding Countries Bulgaria and Romania, the Candidate Countries Turkey Croatia* and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the Countries of the Stabilisation and Association Process and potential candidates Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, as well as Ukraine and Moldova, align themselves with this statement.

Since we have had the opportunity to extensively state the principles which the EU wishes to see applied to Mandate Review, I will at this moment rather focus on the documents received from the Co-Chairs recently as well as the current and future process for Mandate Review.

Mr. Chairman,

The EU is satisfied to see that all principal organs are now working towards reviewing their mandates. We welcome the strong commitment by the Co-Chairs in the General Assembly and the Security Council and by the facilitator in ECOSOC towards producing meaningful results in the short, medium and long term. We thank them for their dedicated efforts. We encourage them to persevere with a view to tackling all the issues and concerns raised by the Member States throughout this exercise, to allow for progress in line with the provisions of the Outcome Document. We should not forget that Mandate Review is a process agreed collectively by our Heads of State and Government at the UN Summit.

Today, we are taking a step further in the process. In particular, we thank Amb Akram and Amb Rock for their letter of 25 May and for the summary of the work performed in the General Assembly since early April. This illustrates progress made since the Secretary General presented to us his valuable report “Mandating and Delivering”.

The EU also welcomes the continued commitment and efforts of the Secretariat under the leadership of ASG Orr. A tangible sign of these efforts is found in the papers prepared by the Secretariat which we are discussing today. It would be premature for us to comment in detail on all of these suggestions. At this stage, I would like to make a few observations on the Summary of proposals as well as on the process for Mandate Review.

On the Summary of Member States/Group Proposals and its Addenda

Mr Chairman,

The EU welcomes the efforts by the Secretariat to summarise our discussions and to provide the member states with an overview of proposals to be discussed within this review. At first glance, the European Union can support a great number of the proposals now reflected in this first draft compilation. We also feel however that some of these proposals do not belong into the framework of Mandate Review by the principal organs.

We see this summary as a living document. For it to be even more useful in our deliberations, we would propose to list separately each proposal from the floor. In many cases, as has rightly been pointed out, comments by delegations did not amount to specific new proposals. In some areas for instance, delegations including the EU expressed a more general position pending additional information from the Secretariat. As we are actively seeking elements for results in the short, medium and long term, we need to be able to quickly get an overview of all proposals already formulated, including those on the last two thematic chapters.

It would also make sense in our view to include in the compilation document all proposals from the SG’s report. The EU for example supports many of the SG’s proposals, as we have pointed out in our previous statements. We also made specific references to review processes mandated by the Summit and underway now, as in the field of human rights, in particular in the new Human Rights Council. We further highlighted the cross-links between this process and other complementary efforts such as the High-level-panel on system-wide coherence or the ongoing discussion on a UN-Counter terrorism strategy.

We look forward also to further proposals being put forward by delegations – we would very much like to see these as soon as possible. The EU has been prominent in putting forward proposals. We would encourage others to do the same. At this stage, we need to reflect collectively on the strands of work that are the most likely to lead to results including in the short term. We would be happy to work first on these areas.

Mr Chairman,

The EU welcomes the Addenda provided by the Secretariat in response to requests from the Plenary, on the Development of the Registry of Mandates, the rationalisation of the reporting architecture and UN observances. While we may need to take a closer look at the Secretariat’s suggestions, let me emphasise that the EU views positively the ideas to maintain and develop the Registry, to rationalise reporting in all clusters, including by introducing core-reports in some cases, and to consider limiting UN observances to ten days of observance and to two such years in a given calendar year.

More particularly on the proposals for consolidated reporting and core-reports, the EU sees potential for results in the short term and would welcome a short oral presentation by the Secretariat on how the introduction of core-reports would positively affect the use of resources within the Secretariat.

On the process for Mandate Review

Mr. Chairman,

The EU supports the approach to frame the process of Mandate Review in three phases. In the immediate future, the EU believes we should focus our efforts on examining “those issues for which problems are clearly identifiable and decisions can be made in the short term”. We hope that our consultations in the next weeks will allow us to reach decisions by consensus.

Such decisions should include reducing the volume of documentation through consolidation of reporting and the introduction of ”a set of core policy reports”. Also among these early decisions, we would like to see the introduction of “mandate impact assessment“ by the Secretariat before new mandates are adopted in order to have a clear appreciation of the added value of new mandates set up by Member States and a process for the way ahead.

Mr. Chairman,

The second phase, leading up to the end of this year, should complete the first review of all mandates. Its timing will also be determined by the sequence of inputs from the Secretariat and from other processes, such as the High-Level Panel on System-wide Coherence. We would encourage the Secretariat to provide us well in advance with a time-table of their expected inputs of information so that we could better structure our work. We also suggest that individual time-frames be set for parts of the review, for instance for certain clusters.

For all of us to get a practical sense of the added value of Mandate Review, the EU would propose to carry out a pilot-project in one of the clusters which appears politically less sensitive. “Cluster E” on “Effective coordination of humanitarian assistance efforts” would lend itself well to such a pilot-project. We could for instance agree at the end of this first phase to review in depth the roughly 350 mandates older than five years right at the beginning of the second phase with the aim of making specific recommendations on reducing redundancy in this area including through re-grouping Humanitarian work in the GA, clarifying the division of labour between the GA and ECOSOC and streamlining post-crisis reporting.

In parallel, the GA should set out those issues for which problems are clearly identifiable within each cluster and agree on clear road-maps for making decisions. The second phase will also have to deal with questions of overlap among organs: in particular the overlaps between ECOSOC and its subsidiary intergovernmental organs as well as between the principal organs.

Mr. Chairman,

In the longer term, the EU believes that all new mandates should be periodically reviewed. Therefore, a durable consultation and decision mechanism for continuously reviewing mandates will have to be set up.

In all phases, our work should continue being organised by clusters, making sure that each subject is approached more in detail than in our first exchanges. We should be able to discuss individual mandates in a systematic and purpose-driven way, in order to identify and consolidate obsolete, redundant or unnecessarily duplicative mandates.

Mr. Chairman,

We look forward to continuing work together with our partners on all aspects of this important exercise, aiming at reaching consensus in the next weeks.

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