EU Presidency Statement - 2004 Working Group on Contingent Owned Equipment

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, the Stabilization and Association Process Countries, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Serbia and Montenegro, the Associated Countries Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey and the EFTA countries, members of the European Economic Area, Liechtenstein and Norway, declare that they align themselves with this statement.

The European Union would like to thank the chairman of the Working Group, Colonel Hanrahan, for convening the working group and we would like to wish him well in his work.

Mr. Chairman,

At the outset, we would like to compliment the Secretariat of the Working Group for the comprehensive background papers they have provided for the delegates. We would also like to thank all those Member States who have taken the trouble to submit issue papers on the topics before us. These papers will provide much food for thought in the coming two weeks.

Mr. Chairman,

In this statement, the European Union will confine itself to some general remarks on the issue of troop costs on which we have a long standing position which was last articulated to the General Assembly at a meeting of the Fifth Committee on 19 May, 2003. It is our conviction that troop contributing countries play a very important role in peacekeeping and must have fair reimbursement, mindful of the need to reconcile a standard rate with the "no-profit" stipulation set out in 1974.

We have thoroughly studied the report of the Secretary-General on the review of the rates of reimbursement to the governments of troop contributing countries, A/57/774. In our view, the methodology is a technical issue on which expert advice is required.

However, the report, in our view, falls significantly short of the request contained in paragraph 8 of General Assembly Resolution 55/274. The need for comprehensiveness, transparency, financial control, confirmed delivery of services and other factors, which were specifically mentioned in this Resolution, do not seem to be fully addressed.

We believe that a convincing case has yet to be made on the merits of including isolated new variables into the methodology. We welcome detailed explanations from the Secretariat during the informal consultations in this respect.

We urge all delegations to work closely together to reach a commonly acceptable and well informed outcome of the deliberations on this item.

I thank you Mr. Chairman.

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