EU Presidency Statement - Small Island Developing States

Mr President,

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union. The Acceding Countries Bulgaria and Romania, the Candidate Countries Turkey and Croatia*, the Countries of the Stabilisation and Association Process and potential candidates Albania, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Serbia and Montenegro, EFTA countries Iceland, and Norway, members of the European Economic Area, as well as the Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova align themselves with this statement.

Mr President,

The European Union would like to take this opportunity warmly to welcome the formal endorsement by the UN General Assembly of the Mauritius Declaration and the Mauritius Strategy for the Further Implementation of the Programme of Action for the sustainable development of Small Island Developing States. The European Union believes that these documents provide an important and substantial blueprint for future international support for and collaboration with the Small Island Developing States. We look forward to a continuing close co-ordination with the Small Island Development States in follow-up to the decisions taken in Mauritius.

Those of us who have been involved over the past months in the SIDS process are keenly aware that many of the issues addressed in the Mauritius Strategy are those same important issues which the UN membership is now considering in the context of the upcoming Millennium Review Summit. We remain committed to ensuring that the concerns of Small Island Developing States are appropriately addressed at the forthcoming Summit.

Mr President,

The European Union would also like to take this opportunity to express its warmest appreciation of and thanks for the central role played by the Government of Mauritius in piloting us through extensive preparations for the Mauritius International Meeting and for so splendidly hosting that meeting last January.

Thank you.


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

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• EU Presidency Statement - Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States (13/1/2005)