EU Presidency Statement - Organization of work of the Fifth Committee

Mr. Chairman,

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union. The acceding countries-Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia-as well as the associated countries-Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey-and the EFTA countries belonging to the European Economic Area-Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway-have aligned themselves with this statement.

Mr. Chairman,

Let me first of all congratulate you on your election to the Chair of the Fifth Committee as well as your colleagues, the Vice Chairs, Asdrubal Pulido Leon, Abdelmalek Bouheddou, Ronald Elkhuizen, and the Rapporteur, Fouad A. Rajeh.

The E.U. has no doubt that under your leadership the challenging negotiations in the 5th Committee during the 58th UNGA will reach a successful and timely conclusion. To this end we welcome the seminars organized by the UN for briefing delegations on the Programme Budget and the Scales of Assessment, which we believe will provide a timely basis for building the requisite expertise in the Committee.

This year the Fifth Committee is facing important issues: the adoption of the programme budget for the years 2004-2005, the review of the Scale of Assessments both for the regular and the peace-keeping budgets, the financing of the International Criminal Tribunals for Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda (ICTY and ICTR), reports of inspecting and auditing bodies and other substantive topics, such as important peace-keeping operations and special political missions.

Moreover, a crucial item of the Fifth Committee will be the single stage inter-governmental review of the budget, within the wider UN reform agenda ("Strengthening of the United Nations"), once this item has received the necessary guidelines from the GA Plenary.

With such a busy and important agenda, the good will and flexibility of all delegations will be crucial to the success of negotiations.

In this regard, let me assure you since the very beginning the enthusiastic support of the E.U. to your work. We will spare no effort in helping you perform your difficult tasks. The EU will be available to work formally and informally as well as always transparently to allow the Committee's business to be conducted expeditiously. We are confident that bureau members and coordinators can similarly devote themselves to reaching common ground in the respective positions of member states in the Committee so that we can work purposefully and without wasting time.

Mr. Chairman,

With reference to the programme of work, the E.U. notes that the Bureau has taken generous decisions to accommodate different interests. The EU expects that the time allocated for discussions of one of the most important matters, i.e. the Program Budget will be sufficient to finish our work as scheduled. We agree that our attention should be particularly devoted to this item, since our priority is to provide to the UN the necessary resources to carry out its mandate.

We therefore wish that we will be able to approach budgetary issues without being encumbered by other items, many of which we trust will be concluded by the end of October.

In this context, we think that also negotiations on peacekeeping scale - like the ones on regular budget scale - should finish before budget negotiations start.

Whenever possible, the Committee should consider taking note of undisputed reports to allow more time for debate on more contentious issues.

We must finish our work on time, i.e. on December 9th. We welcome the formal sessions on budget to be brief. We support the idea of moving quickly into informals, and rapid and effective negotiations of resolutions.

We face a challenging session ahead, but we are confident that the Committee will respond adequately.

Thank you Mr. Chairman.

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• EU Presidency Statement - Organization of Work of the Fifth Committee at its First Resumed Session (10/3/2004)
• EU Presidency Statement - Art. 19 of UN Charter (8/10/2003)
• EU Presidency Statement - UN Administrative and Financial Functioning  (8/10/2003)
• EU Presidency Statement - Financial reports and reports of the Board of Auditors (7/10/2003)
• EU Presidency Statement - Joint Inspection Unit (7/10/2003)