Press release
UN General Assembly: EP calls for strengthened world governance
External relations - 18-03-2010 - 11:53
Committees
Committees
MEPs have listed six priority issues they want the Council to address at the 65th session of the United Nations General Assembly, which starts in September 2010: the EU's place at the UN, world governance and UN reform, peace and security, development, human rights and climate change.
These issues are set out in a resolution drafted by Alexander Graf Lambsdorff (ALDE, DE). MEPs call on the EU's new High Representative, Baroness Catherine Ashton, to co-ordinate Member States' positions better with a view to reform of the UN Security Council. A seat on an enlarged Security must remain a long-term objective of the Union, says the resolution.
MEPs ask the Council to commit itself to the aim of complete nuclear disarmament, in line with the US administration. They wish the Council to work "coherently, consistently and efficiently towards achieving a successful outcome" at the 2010 Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in Geneva (28 April to 9 May 2010).
Millennium goals and combating climate change
MEPs ask that national and regional parliaments be more extensively involved in UN work, that Member States agree a common position on the Human Rights Council reform scheduled for 2011and that the commitment to reaching Millennium Development Goal targets by 2015 be reconfirmed, notably on maternal health (MDG 5), where progress has been limited.
Climate change negotiations should result in an agreement in Mexico City in December 2010, says the resolution, which notes that global warming may exacerbate the potential for conflicts over natural resources.
On Wednesday 17 March, for the second consecutive year, Graf Lambsdorff presented the resolution approved by Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee and the Council working party on EU-UN relations.
Procedure: common foreign and security policy recommendations shall be deemed adopted unless, before the beginning of the part-session, at least 40 Members submit a written objection, in which case the committee's recommendations shall be included on the agenda of the same part-session for debate and voting (Rules of Procedure, Rule 97.4).
In the Chair : Gabriele ALBERTINI (EPP, IT)
REF.: 20100316IPR70699