UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL

57^th session

Item 9

General Debate on racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance, follow-up and implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action

EU statement

Mr/Madam Chair,

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union.

The candidate countries North Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania, Republic of Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina*and Georgia align themselves with this statement.

The EU continues to be strongly committed to the fight against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, as respect and tolerance are the founding values of our societies. Hate has no place in the EU. We must continue to work for it on a daily basis.

The EU participated actively and constructively in the 14^th session of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Elaboration of Complementary Standards to the ICERD, in line with our longstanding position to engage in all meetings of all Durban follow-up mechanisms, and we thank the Chair for her tireless efforts to try to make progress.

Unfortunately, the Committee continues to face low attendance. There is also often a conflation between racial discrimination on the one hand and discrimination on the basis of religion or belief on the other, which is not helpful. These are two different concepts that each deserve to be treated as stand-alone forms of discrimination, through separate tracks.

With regard to the report of the 9^th and 10^th session of the GIEE, we continue to have concerns about the added value of this group.

Therefore, we continue to request an in-depth discussion on how to rationalise and streamline the existing mechanisms in the field of the fight against racism, on the basis of the proposal put forward during the 21^st session of the IGWG. There is an urgent need to concentrate expertise, look at the calendar and decide who does what where and when, to better enable us to address this important issue.

I thank you.

* North Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina continue to be part of the Stabilisation and Association Process.

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.