Brussels, 25/06/2013 (Agence Europe) - The eradication of poverty, and both environmental and economic sustainability, are inseparable and should constitute the background of the global framework for development after 2015, the EU believes. This is the unified decision that the EU will argue in the UN negotiations on the establishment of new post-2015 objectives. In Luxembourg on Tuesday 25 June, the General Affairs Council of the EU formally adopted without debate the conclusions giving the mandate to the European Commission for these negotiations, supporting a common approach of this future framework so as to bring together in the same process the global development objectives that will succeed the millennium development goals (MDGs) and the sustainable development objectives to be worked upon in order to follow up on the Rio+20 conference in June 2012.
This is the approach that the Commission had recommended last March so as to guarantee “a decent life for all by 2030”. The development ministers from the 27 EU member states gave their approval to this approach on 28 May, and the Environment Council did the same on 18 June, stressing the importance of respecting the balance between the three dimensions of sustainable development - the environmental dimension, the economic dimension and the social dimension. The United Nations high-level panel report (European Commissioner for Development Andris Piebalgs is a member of this panel) is along the same lines. (AN/transl.fl)