Brussels - New York: Europe and the Arabs

Charles Michel, President of the European Union, said in his speech at the Future Summit hosted by the United Nations, "Each of us is here today: to do our part, to share responsibilities. Finding the best way to address our common challenges is the common task of our generation. This summit is a unique moment to reinforce our ambitions. The European Union is fully on board. We want a Charter for the Future that revitalizes multilateral trust and puts the United Nations back at the heart of our work. This Charter is a powerful incentive to accelerate our sustainable development goals, advance human rights, gender equality and protect our planet. "We must urgently reform our international financial architecture. We have already fulfilled our commitment to redirect $100 billion of Special Drawing Rights to developing countries. The European Union has taken a leadership role, but this is not enough. We must do more. We must strive to redirect more Special Drawing Rights – up to 40% of the SDR allocation. We must also fulfill our previous commitments. The EU and its member states are leaders in global development finance. In 2023, EU official development assistance reached 0.57% of GDP – more than $100 billion. We encourage other partners, including in the G7, to follow our example. If all G7 partners were as ambitious as we are, it would generate an additional $100 billion every year.

We also need to make our international financial architecture more effective – and more inclusive. Developing countries need more money, both private and public, now.

We must also address the debt problem because we cannot accept that low- and middle-income countries have to choose between fighting poverty and fighting climate change. They need to do both, and we need to support them.

To take just one example: last year, some middle-income countries had to pay six times more than the average country like Germany in interest payments on public debt, when measured as a share of public debt. The G20 Common Framework is a good tool, but we need to work with partners to make it more efficient, more transparent and more timely.

I want to thank you, dear António Guterres, for your leadership, and I want to thank all the negotiators and co-facilitators for their work in making this Charter for the Future a reality. 193 countries have signed the Charter.

We developing countries, together with the European Union, have tried to play a particularly positive role in helping to reach consensus among all countries in the world. This points the way forward for cooperation in the future – in the interests of multilateralism and humanity. Diversity, tolerance and mutual respect.

This Charter for the Future sends a strong signal of confidence that despite our differences, despite the challenges we face, we can work together, and we want to work together. You can count on the European Union to be a strong and reliable partner in making this Charter a success.