It is good to be back in New York. It is good to be back in this Hall. Flying here to attend the opening of a new session of the General Assembly once seemed like a routine undertaking, but this past year has made it something very special again: a sign that things are finally moving in the right direction.
We all know that the pandemic is not yet in our rear-view mirror, but the world is slowly finding its footing, one vaccination at a time. And yet, we already know that some things have fundamentally changed. The virus has brutally exposed our fragility — the fragility of our social fabric, of our health systems, of our economies and of our lives.
The virus destroyed our illusion that human progress is a one-way street. Some 124 million people went from being poor to needing to fight for their very survival, while millions more do not even know where their next meal will come from. Over 250 million people lost their jobs and are without a paycheck to support their families. In the blink of an eye, we lost decades of hard-earned development gains, and we will lose even more if we cannot ensure that everyone has access to the vaccine as soon as possible. This is our only exit ticket out of the pandemic.
That is why the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access (COVAX) Facility is probably one of the most important initiatives of our time. It has so far shipped over 300 million vaccine doses to 142 countries. As part of Team Europe, Austria is among the lead contributors to the COVAX facility. We were the first country providing our neighbourhood, the Western Balkans, with much-needed doses through the European Union Vaccine Sharing Mechanism. Austria also donated over 2 million doses bilaterally to our partners from Georgia, Lebanon, Tunisia, Ukraine and Iran. And as host to the United Nations Headquarters in Vienna, we spared no effort in keeping United Nations personnel and their families safe, including through vaccination.
However, an enormous task still lies ahead of us. We have to massively accelerate international vaccine distribution. It is perfectly clear, and we all know it: in this pandemic no one is safe until everyone is safe.
The coronavirus disease COVID-19 added fuel to the fire of existing geopolitical tensions. A ring of crises and conflicts spans the globe: in Yemen and Syria, where many children have known nothing but conflict and deprivation; in Ethiopia and Nagorno-Karabakh, where long-standing fault lines have erupted; or in Belarus, Myanmar or Nicaragua, where some have used the pandemic as a carte blanche to ignore human rights and fundamental freedoms.
We have to send to all of them a very clear message that our fight for human rights and our engagement for fundamental freedoms know no lockdown. This
fight — this engagement — was never an easy or straightforward task. It is a continuous battle marked by progress, but also by bitter setbacks.
How demanding and problematic this struggle can be became clear again in Afghanistan. After 20 years of engagement, it seems that we are now back at square one. It seems that much of the social, political and economic progress is slipping through our fingers like sand. We are all faced with the same question: what shall we do now? From my perspective, the answer is clear: we cannot turn our back on the people of Afghanistan.
The consequences would be felt immediately, above all by the millions of women and girls, human rights defenders and minorities who face an uncertain future. We have to remain engaged, and we have to offer urgently needed humanitarian aid. That is why Austria will provide a total of €20 million in humanitarian emergency aid to Afghanistan and the region.
But we also have to spell out very clearly our expectations of the new ruling Power in Kabul. There can be no blank checks for the Taliban. Fundamental rights and freedoms, in particular for women and girls, are simply non-negotiable. We have to do everything to prevent Afghanistan from turning into a black hole with the capacity to destabilize the whole region, and we have to drive home the message to the Taliban that the world’s eyes are on them. We do not want Afghanistan to turn into an incubator or a safe haven for international terrorism and extremism
That requires a coordinated international effort and coordinated messaging. I strongly believe that Afghanistan’s immediate neighbours, in particular, and other Muslim countries can and should play a central role in this endeavour.
Some gleefully describe Afghanistan as a failure of the so-called West, as proof of the inevitable decline of our democratic system of governance or a breakdown of our values. It is true that Afghanistan holds many bitter lessons that we need to take to heart, but from my perspective one thing is crystal clear: we should not fall into defeatism, self-doubt or despair. Our answer cannot lie in a cynical and inward turning away from our partners and allies.
The days of a moral gunboat policy may be over, but the values that the free world fought and stood for in Afghanistan and for which we stand and fight for in so many other places around the globe continue to be the right ones. They were and are the ones that give individuals freedom and the capacity to live up to their potential: rationalism, rule of law, equality, human rights and liberal democracy.
In the end, it boils down to one question: how do we want to live? As a strong believer in the democratic system, my answer is clear and simple. I want to live in a world — and I want my children and my future grandchildren to grow up in a world — where the freedoms of expression, religion or belief, the freedom of assembly and the rights of minorities are not just noble sentiments, but an everyday reality.
The pandemic has brought home to us the simple truth of how interconnected and interdependent we all are. We have learned the hard way that we cannot overcome a challenge like this one on our own. Despite forcing us into social distancing, the pandemic brought us closer as a human family. Let us use this lesson to tackle the next crisis that is actually already upon us.
Compared to the COVID-19 pandemic, which burst into our lives like an explosion, this one is like a slow-burning, smouldering fire, creeping up on us. I am obviously talking about climate change. Austria will continue to be at the vanguard, when it comes to ambitious and bold green recovery and climate action.
And there are other tectonic shifts that will fundamentally alter the way we live. New and emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum computing are racing ahead, leaving many of us behind. We have to make sure that our human-centric approach applies online and offline.
New technologies are not a new frontier where human rights do not exist. We need to define clear red lines that we as humankind are not willing or ready to cross. This includes stepping back from creating killing machines — lethal autonomous weapons systems — where an algorithm decides in a split second who lives and who dies. Last week, Austria organized a conference to ensure meaningful human control over these weapons. Together with partner countries and civil society, we hope to establish a process leading to a ban on killer robots.
Further, Austria will continue to be a driving force for disarmament and arms control. We cannot increase our security by increasing our potential to destroy, and, most importantly of all, by hanging on to the myth of nuclear deterrence. We need to eliminate
these horrendous weapons of mass destruction. Their prohibition is a first step, and we in Austria look forward to hosting the first Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons in Vienna next March.
No nation State can shoulder today’s and tomorrow’s challenges on its own. We need neighbours, we need partners, we need strong multilateral institutions. Austria therefore strongly supports the vision of the Secretary-General for a United Nations 2.0. Our multilateral system, conceived in the twentieth century, needs to be made fit for the twenty-first century.
Let us not get dragged down by bureaucratic inertia. Let us be bold and daring. As a medium-sized country, Austria knows the value of a strong United Nations. We know that our own security depends on the rule of law and not the law of the jungle. The rule of law will be at the centre of our efforts when elected to the Security Council for the term 2027-2028.
When I met with the President of the General Assembly in Vienna recently, he told me that the guiding light of his presidency is hope. I believe no maxim could be more fitting for our times. It reminded me of something Winston Churchill once said: “All the greatest things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word”. So, as we face the challenges ahead, here are some of the words I would wish to guide us in our work: tolerance, trust, solidarity, truth, justice, compassion, humility and hope.