The world today is much more dangerous than
when we were together here last year. Fear is stronger
than hope, I’m afraid. Tragic events have marked
us. More than 200 schoolgirls were abducted and
enslaved. An airliner packed with parents, children,
scientists, tourists and crew members was cut down in
mid-flight. A mountain people were hunted, trapped
and slaughtered. And last week, at sea, 500 people were
shipwrecked, the victims of murderous smugglers.
Those dark episodes disturb us in that they seem
to herald deeper changes. Public opinion is beginning
to fear that the world is slipping through our fingers
and turning to evil. It is as if the political foundation
of our very existence together is being challenged, as
if the way individuals and States relate to one another
is threatened. Our citizens see the rise of obscurantism
and the forces of fanaticism; they see the boundaries of
a world of yesterday — of the day before yesterday, of
an insane world — reappearing. Yes, as my countryman
Paul-Henri Spaak said 66 years ago before this same
Assembly, we are afraid. Ours is not the fear of a coward,
but the fear that a man can and should have when he
looks to the future and considers all that it may hold of
horror and tragedy, and the terrible responsibilities in
that future (see A/PV.147, p. 280).
(spoke in English)
When the values we share are under pressure, when
the order of things seems to be unravelling, we must
act. We must bring back our girls and free them from
Boko Haram. We must allow the families of the victims
of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH-17 to pay their last
respects to their loved ones, and keep alive the memory
of the hopeful people drowned in the Mediterranean.
All of us must also mobilize against the barbaric group
that is the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Together, we can make the world a safer place again.
When looking back upon the past year, the most
bewildering act in our region, for us in Europe, was
the abrupt and illegal annexation of Crimea in March.
That violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial
integrity triggered the gravest threat to the European
security order in decades. It matters beyond the
European continent. It is about rejecting the use of
force and about defending the rule of law that upholds
our society of nations. The General Assembly assumed
its responsibility by adopting resolution 68/262 on the
territorial integrity of Ukraine. Members defended
those very values that the Charter of the United Nations
was built upon. The European Union welcomes the
strong message that the breaking of rules will not be
tolerated. When you tamper with borders, you tamper
with peace.
The European Union stands firm in its solidarity
with Ukraine. It is the Ukrainian people’s right to
decide their own political destiny. Europe responded
to aggression and the violation of international law
with a wide range of political, economic and financial
sanctions. We knew that that could hurt our own
economies in return, but together with our international
partners, we did not relent, since the stability of the
European house itself was at stake. Now all of us
must ensure that the peace process launched in Minsk
advances, and that all parties respect the ceasefire
and abide by the peace plan. The sanctions are not a
goal in themselves, and they can be revised, provided
that there is tangible progress. We can rebuild trust if
commitments are met.
At the same time, it is essential that Ukraine’s
authorities move firmly forward on the path of
reforms. Those reforms — economic, political and
constitutional — will determine the success of a lasting
political solution. The country’s political life and
prosperity shall belong to all its citizens. An inclusive
Ukraine with a new social contract and a fair balance
between the parts and the whole is the best way to
secure the country’s future.
European Union countries and institutions are
fully committed to supporting Ukraine as it follows
that path. The European Union Association Agreement
with the Ukraine, which was ratified just last week
by the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada and the European
Parliament, is a compass and an opportunity to help
Ukraine transform into the dynamic, modern and open
democracy its people deserve. The steps ahead in this
cooperation will take place within the wider picture of
the peace process. With Russia, our biggest neighbour,
we are ready to engage and re-establish a basis of trust
and of promises kept.
There are nearly 200 countries in this world, but
many thousands of minorities. Clearly, there is no other
way than ensuring inclusiveness, respecting identities
and giving people a voice. As a Belgian and a European,
I know it can be a real effort to stay together. It requires
constant attention, openness, empathy and willingness
to adjust. Countries do not have to break up to allow
for multiple, often multi-layered, identities to coexist.
Unity in diversity can work.
The most pressing concern on all our minds today
is Iraq, Syria and the wider Middle East. I need not
sketch the bleak outlook, sinister deeds or unspeakable
suffering in the region. What we have seen this past
summer has nothing to do with Islam. It is the return
of barbaric ghosts from a long-forgotten past and
horrendous deeds rejecting that we are one humankind
and denying the very basic values of civilization.
As the Grand Mufti of Egypt said to me two weeks
ago, ISIL is abusing the name of Islam and the very
values of Islam and of every religion. I welcome the
statements made and measures taken by the League of
Arab States, the Organization for Islamic Cooperation
and Muslim nations against ISIL. It is essential that
the parties and neighbours most concerned be at the
frontlines of this common fight, but all of us must do
our share to confront and isolate ISIL, block financial
flows and weapon flows, cut off illegal oil revenue and
stop the influx of foreign fighters. European Union
Governments are working hard on all those fronts.
As we know from our own national experience,
radicalization can strike anywhere: take the young
jihadi fanatic from France who turned torturer in Syria
and, back in Europe, murdered four innocent victims
in the Jewish Museum of Belgium, in my hometown of
Brussels. We need urgent collective action to stop those
foreign fighters from joining ISIL’s ranks, as so many
of us underlined in yesterday’s high-level Security
Council meeting (see S/PV.7272). We also must work
together to help the affected countries. Iraq’s new
Government, which is aiming for inclusive leadership,
deserves everybody’s full support and certainly has
ours.
However, the crisis cannot be resolved without a
political solution for Syria. We owe it to the almost
200,000 victims and the millions who have had to
flee their homes. It is quite simply a catastrophe and
one of the international community’s biggest failures.
What is needed is a comprehensive regional solution.
It must include, as this summer’s tragic events in
Gaza underlined once more, a two-State solution with
an independent, democratic, viable Palestinian State
living side by side and in peace with Israel and its other
neighbours.
The violent dynamics are spreading instability in
all directions — into the Sahel region and as far south
as Nigeria, but also to the east. Those dynamics are
fostering terrorism, organized crime, arms flows, drugs
trafficking, human smuggling and radicalization, as we
also see in Libya. I want to pay tribute to France for its
efforts to help, upon their requests, the Governments
of Mali and the Central African Republic to restore the
rule of law and instil inclusiveness and reconciliation
in close collaboration with the African Union, the
United Nations and the whole of the European Union.
We are ready to undertake our responsibility, knowing
that we Europeans have no self-interested geostrategic
objectives in the area. We turned that page of history
decades ago.
A collective approach is important to deal with
another tragic symptom of an imploding Middle
East: dramatic migration in the Mediterranean. We
have seen millions of people fleeing the war in Syria
into countries such as Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.
European lifeguards rescue up to 1,000 people a
week — people who risk their lives on small boats
across the Mediterranean, looking for a life free from
fear. Many come from countries where the State
structures have crumbled, where violence is endemic
and where people’s most basic needs cannot be met.
(spoke in French)
The only lasting answer to despair is development.
I wish to pay tribute to the tireless commitment of
the United Nations and of the Secretary-General to
promoting the development goals, including the post-
2015 development agenda, and to maintaining a level
of ambition for our actions that is commensurate with
the challenges. I also acknowledge their efforts with
regard to climate challenge, where Europe remains
committed at the forefront and will demonstrate that
commitment at the Paris negotiations next year. I hope
that all nations — large and small, rich and poor — will
assume their responsibility.
The Ebola crisis cruelly reminds us that just as the
future of a country depends on its health facilities, the
health of all may ultimately depend on such structures.
Ebola is the modern plague. The teams of doctors,
nurses and volunteers must be strengthened. Europe
stands ready, with others, to help, to relieve and to heal.
This autumn, we commemorate the centenary of a
great conflict that was the first to lead the entire world
into its destructive spiral. It took the Second World War
for our nations to pull themselves together and to try
and build peace together, making the birth of our union
of nations possible. Although, since then, we have
managed to prevent another world war, we have still
not put an end to violence between or within States.
We meet today not to lament the unforgivable but to
nurture hope and to achieve what we must do, that is,
to act together.
(spoke in English)
We must overcome fear. We must overcome fear
by fighting danger, by restoring justice and by striving
for peace so that next year, when our society of nations
meets again in New York, we can say, “The spell of that
dreadful summer of 2014 has been broken. Step by step,
we are making progress. Patiently but relentlessly, we
are restoring a place for hope.”