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EU Speaking Points - Mandate Review, ECOSOC

Informal Consultations on Mandate Review, Economic and Social Council; Statement by Minister Alexander Marschik, Deputy Permanent Representative of Austria to the United Nations, on behalf of the European Union.

General Remarks:

Mr. Vice-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, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, and the EFTA countries Iceland and Norway, members of the European Economic Area, as well as Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova align themselves with this statement.
  
  
• Mandate Review is a valuable and necessary stock-taking, aimed at updating and improving the work of the organisation as it becomes ever more operational in its focus. With this goal in mind, we will have to identify and consolidate obsolete, redundant or unnecessarily duplicative mandates. Spare capacities generated in the process should be used for the benefit of our shared priorities, starting with those functions most in need of reinforcement.
  
  
• We value the inclusiveness and transparency of the process and welcome the active involvement of the Secretariat. Mandate Review should not be overburdened, especially in this first phase, with politically sensitive mandates, nor is it intended as a cost-cutting exercise. We also believe that Mandate Review is complementary to other ongoing reform processes all of which are interlinked and mutually reinforcing.
  
  
• Meaningful results achieved in this first phase will illustrate the added value of Mandate Review. The EU looks forward to the Secretariat's detailed suggestions on opportunities for consolidation of reporting requirements. The outcome of the first phase should also set up the process for the following phases of Mandate Review in the mid- and long term.
  
  
• We support the Mandate Review efforts currently under way in the principal organs and hope that some decisions can be arrived at in all of these organs, also in the short term.
  
  

Distribution of work between General Assembly/Main Committees - ECOSOC/functional/regional commissions:

• There is a clear need for a more coherent and unified UN approach to follow-up to the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals and to rationalize the work of and distribution among the UN's principal organs.
  
  
• The EU shares the view that ECOSOC ought to effectively make use of its comparative advantage as a coordinating body having a comprehensive overview of the work of its various functional and regional commissions.
  
  
• ECOSOC should, therefore, better review, guide and monitor the work of its subsidiary machinery by highlighting areas of overlap and duplication and by making recommendations to its subsidiary bodies on how to overcome such duplication.
  
  
• ECOSOC should live up to its role by more comprehensively and analytically integrating its various reported inputs into a distilled concentrate of policy recommendations for the GA and its Main Committees.
  
  
• Likewise ECOSOC should critically examine its subsidiary bodies' mandates on a regular basis and advise its functional commissions on potential transgressions on their respective mandates.
  
  
• In the short term, we hope that ECOSOC can contribute its share to the consolidation of reporting drawing upon suggestions by the Secretary-General.
  
  
• One step in that direction would be Secretariat reports for multiple addressees rather than having separate reports on the same subject, thereby securing the necessary level of quality of reporting.
  
  

Mr Vice-President,

• As we have emphasised, the EU is examining all mandates with an open mind, including those initiated or co-sponsored by its members. We will continue working our way through the manifold mandates and will come back with more detailed proposals on particular mandates contained in the Registry at the next opportunity.
  
  

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

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