At a plenary session of the European Parliament on Tuesday 8 October, MEPs debated the results of the ‘Future Summit’, held on 22 and 23 September in New York on the sidelines of the 79th General Assembly of the United Nations. At the end of the summit, the adoption of a ‘Pact for the Future’ was welcomed by several MEPs, who saw it as a strengthening of global multilateralism.
“This Pact is a success. We still do not have agreement on a global tax concept, we still lack funding for the Sustainable Development Goals, but, despite everything, Vladimir Putin’s attempts at sabotage have failed in the face of the multilateral order”, said MEP Udo Bullmann (S&D, German).
“We are going to have to take action on Security Council reform, (on) financing sustainability (and on) combating climate change”, he added, saying that the European Union needed to be proactive in combating inequalities, particularly in its budgetary choices.
Barry Andrews (Renew Europe, Irish), chairman of the European Parliament’s Development Committee, welcomed the UN’s convening power. “Everybody showed up. The EU, more than anybody else understand the value of multilateralism. Five [parliamentary] committees were represented. There were thirteen MEPs”, he added, while regretting that the role of parliaments within the UN system is still too limited.
Lukas Mandl (EPP, Austrian) also stressed the importance of the European Parliament’s representation on UN bodies.
See the UN’s ‘Pact for the Future’ (in French): https://aeur.eu/f/dsm (Original version in French by Bernard Denuit)