THE Tanaiste, Mr Spring, has urged member states to work to solve the UN's financial crisis and reform its structures to allow it to deal with the growing number of violent conflicts and humanitarian emergencies.
In his speech to the General Assembly yesterday on behalf of the EU, Mr Spring warned that if the UN cannot respond to the challenges facing it, "the multilateral approach which the United Nations embodies is under threat".
That multilateral approach was necessary to deal with the growing problems facing the world. "Our peace and prosperity cannot be assured by states, or even regions, acting in isolation," he maintained.
Mr Spring called on all member states to pay their debts and contributions "promptly, in full and without preconditions". The UN is owed some 52 billion, of which half is owed by the US. The Republican dominated Congress is refusing to approve payment of the debt.
Mr Spring acknowledged the need for reform. He called for renewed efforts to rationalise UN activities in the economic and social fields and to enhance efficiency and better management. Some progress had been made in this regard, but we are still far from the overall results needed".
He said that at last year's 50th anniversary of the United Nations there had been a dual message. "Conviction that the United Nations remained more than ever indispensable in a world of increasing interdependence of nations concern that the organisation adapt and renew itself to serve the needs of a new century.
But he questioned whether this message had been acted upon. Have we strengthened the potential of the United Nations. Or yet sufficiently exerted the energy and imagination necessary to use the opportunities it offers us""
Last year's 50th anniversary celebration "was tempered by a sobering awareness that the level of conflict, economic disparities and humanitarian crisis in our world was increasing, not diminishing". There had been a series of open and bloody conflicts within states, an increase in the number of refugees, gross and flagrant violations of human rights, and a widespread incidence of hunger, disease and homelessness. Threats to the environment, drugs and terrorism were among a new range of risks that required concerted international action.
He defended the UN's peacekeeping role despite "the experience of some recent difficult operations" presumably a reference to ineffective UN operations in former Yugoslavia, Somalia and Rwanda. He pointed out that "the Union today provides the majority of personnel for current operations and contributes some 37 per cent of the UN peacekeeping budget."
He suggested that the ineffectiveness of some peacekeeping operations had not been the fault of the UN.
He also repeated EU commitments to arms control and disarmament, to ending the indiscriminate use of land mines and to enhancing human rights. He called for adequate funding for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Centre for Human Rights.
He pledged EU support for the efforts to establish common institutions of state in Bosnia in the wake of the recent elections. The Union also supported UN efforts to negotiate a solution to the Cyprus question and to restore democracy and dialogue in Burundi, and encouraged all parties to the Middle East conflict to re-engage themselves in the peace process, he said.