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EU Statement - 4th Committee: At the occasion of the closing plenary meeting of the Committee on Information

24.05.2024 Press and information team of the Delegation to the UN in New York

24 May 2024, New York - EU Statement on behalf of the European Union and its Member States at the occasion of the closing plenary meeting of the Committee on Information, delivered by Eleonore Heimsoeth, Attaché, EU Delegation to the UN.

Mr. Chair, [Madam Under Secretary-General], distinguished colleagues,

Let me start by extending our thanks to the Chair and all Bureau members for their efforts in navigating a challenging negotiation in the Committee. Further, the continued support by the Secretariat was instrumental to smoothly guide this tightly-timed negotiation.

Finally, let me also thank once again the G77 for their Zero Draft, and especially the facilitator, the distinguished colleague from Bangladesh, for guiding us through this process. It is thanks to tireless efforts towards consensus-building throughout the negotiations that we can today welcome the adoption of the two resolutions by consensus.

Overall we can congratulate our efforts in giving guidance to the Department of Global Communications, whose work remains crucial to provide reliable, factual information, strengthen information integrity for our societies, and tackle mis- and disinformation which hampers UN mandate implementation.

Let me outline some of the important decisions that we have taken:

• The Committee has this year for the first time acknowledged the significant risks and opportunities that Artificial Intelligence brings to the work of the DGC;
• We have tasked the Secretary General to assess best practices and challenges in tackling misinformation, disinformation and information manipulation;
• We noted the important, comprehensive work that is currently undertaken to draft the UN Guiding Principles for Information Integrity;
• We have reinforced our calls to uphold multilingualism, a core value of the Organization, in times of crises;

However, we must also draw lessons from this year's negotiations. Let me emphasize two:

First, we must understand the intricate link between the premise of consensus-finding and non-politicization of our work. It is concerning that the premise of our common decade-old understanding was put into question.

This relates to our second point. A broader appreciation of our key mandate as the COI Open-ended Working Group, and its accompanying procedures, is needed. We call on the Secretariat and the Bureau to assess our working methods and means to provide best guidance to the DGC. We are concerned that the resolution continues to grow, with the risk of diluting the guidance that we provide. As a Committee, we should seek ways to improve the, at times redundant and overly lengthy, resolution.

Mr Chair, distinguished colleagues, you may count on the European Union's support and engagement in such efforts.

Thank you.