Slovensko predsedstvo EU 2008 Slovenian Presidency of the EU 2008 La Presidence slov6ne de I'UE 2008

UNITED NATIONS General Assembly

Ad hoc working group on the revitalization of the General Assembly

Statement b y
H.E. Ambassador Sanja Stiglic

Permanent Representative of Slovenia to the United Nations
on behalf of the European U n i o n

N e w York, 2 1 F e b r u a r y 2008

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Ihave the honor t o speak on behalf of the European Union.

"The Candidate Countries Turkey, Croatia* and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia*, the Countries of the Stabilisation and Association Process and potential candidates Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and the EFTA country Iceland, member of the European Economic Area, as well as the Republic of Moldova, Armenia, and Georgia align themselves with this declaration. Distinguished Co-Chairmen, At the outset, let m e congratulate you on your appointment as co-chairmen o f this newly established Working Group and t o thank you for clearly outlining the approach for its work in this session. The European Union reiterates its support for efforts aimed at strengthening the General Assembly's role and authority, in line with the UN Charter, the principles and objectives outlined in the 2005 World Summit Outcome document and the measures adopted in several General Assembly resolutions. Revitalization of the General Assembly has been an ongoing process over several years and numerous resolutions have already been adopted in the past. As we have stated in November, we view implementation a t the core of the proceedings of this working group. Fostering the impiementation and the consolidation of existing resolutions and decisions will bring real added value and will Impact significantly on the way the General Assembly - and the UN as a whole - conducts its work. Therefore, we strongly support the idea of the co-chairs in getting a clear picture of the status of implementation of all the decisions on the revitalization of the General Assembly adopted since we started this debate years ago. We also thank the Secretary General for the report A/62/608, prepared in accordance with requests from resolution 61/292 from the previous session. We thank the co-chairs for proposing the specific topic, since we fully agree that we should avoid traditional debate that takes place year after year under this agenda item, and that we should, after the overview of impiementation, rather focus on one o r two issues where we may be able to move the process forward in a practical and achievable way.
It may however be more feasible to identify any specific issue to be tackled in depth after the evaluation and assessment phase. That first phase will namely allow us to consider possible shortcomings, and to find possible topics that may realistically bring concrete results.

Distinguished Co-Chairmen, The EU looks forward t o constructive and pragmatic discussions in this working group on the ways t o further enhance the role of the General Assembly.

Croatia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia continue to be part of the Stabiiisation and Association Process.