Andorra, 2012

I would first

like to extend hearty congratulations to the President

of the General Assembly at its sixty-seventh session,

Mr. Jeremić, to whom I wish the greatest success in his

work.

Just one year ago, I ended my statement

(see A/66/PV.27) by reasserting the notion of commitment as a fundamental value and linchpin

of our political action, understood as a deep belief

in the values of democracy, respect for human rights

and the rule of law; as the assumption of individual

responsibilities for a common project; and ultimately

as a desire for dialogue and understanding. It is in the

pursuit of that commitment and that balance — what

we might call the right balance — that the difficulty of

Government resides. That is the case at home, in every

one of our States, and also in our shared home of the

United Nations.

A year ago in this Assembly, we echoed a phrase of

the then French President, who stated: “Let us choose

the path of compromise, which is neither renunciation

nor repudiation, but which allows us to move forward,

step by step” (A/66/PV.11, p. 23). Indeed, on the path of

compromise and the right balance, we cannot and must

not abandon the defence of human rights, the rule of

law and the most essential democratic values such as

freedom of expression. We cannot and should not deny

respect to others.

However, establishing a fair balance does not mean

conducting a balancing act. Indeed, that balance must

be based on strong principles. There can be no excuse

for violence, intolerance or impunity. President Obama

was right when he mentioned in this Hall that the

recent attacks on diplomatic missions were not solely

an attack on the United States, but also an assault on the

foundations of the United Nations itself. There can be

no excuse or impunity for such acts.

We are all Chris Stevens. But what defines us is not

how we fall but how we rise again. We will stand by all

Chris Stevens as they rise to defend the ideals of the

United Nations.

Allow me today to echo the words of the new

President of the French Republic, François Hollande,

Co-Prince of Andorra, who stated before this Assembly

that “The mission of the United Nations is to tackle

these challenges and to find strong and just responses to

them together.” (A/67/PV.6, p. 43) For over 65 years, the

United Nations has been a reference for peace, justice

and respect for human rights. Remarkable progress has

indeed been observed in recent years. It is no less true,

however, that the countries represented here cannot afford the luxury of falling into complacency. The

demand for just and strong responses is very real.

The change of regime in Libya and the ongoing

grievous conflict in Syria have presented the

international community with the awkward dilemma of

having to find a fair balance between resolving conflicts

peacefully and the rule of law — in short, between

peace and justice. It would appear that, in order to attain

a peaceful solution to a conflict or to end hostilities,

justice must be sacrificed while those who have violated

human rights go unpunished; or that, due to inf lexible

application of international law, conflicts will continue

forever. A fair balance must not allow either those who

violate human rights to go unpunished, or conflicts to

continue endlessly. With regard to Syria, it is time to

support open societies and political transitions that can

guarantee a framework for democratic development. I

wish to praise the commitment of the Secretary-General

and Joint Special Representative Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi

to finding a solution to the conflict in Syria.

The Secretary-General has said that people

want progress and solutions today. They want ideas,

leadership and concrete hope for the future. The

Secretary-General’s words accurately reflect what the

world expects from all Member States. We also need

to maintain perspective, because if complacency is

dangerous, so too are harsh criticism and pessimism.

While the working methods of the United Nations

system are far from optimal, we should not forget that

the reality of today seemed an unattainable dream a

century ago. We should move on from talk of dreams

to talk of ambition. We should move on from dreaming

about change to exerting the ambition to change. We

should move on from “I have a dream”, as stated by

Martin Luther King, Jr., to speaking about the ambition

that we all share.

In his statement at the opening of the general debate

(see A/67/PV.6), Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon rightly

mentioned raising our levels of ambition. The step

from dream to ambition needs perspective; dreaming

requires knowing only how we would like things to be,

but having and realizing ambition requires us to know

how far we are prepared to go, while bearing very

much in mind the path travelled and everything to be

experienced along the way.

In that respect the United Nations and its system

allow us to face the future with cautious optimism, as

the world has been better and more just with the presence of the United Nations than without it. However, when

we look at its evolution, we realize that something is not

quite right, as the evolution process has been fraught

with limitations, shortcomings and obstacles that the

international community must address in its efforts to

resolve conflicts peacefully and in accordance with

the law. The Secretary-General rightly emphasized

his new Education First initiative, which encourages

democratic values, human rights and the rule of law.

And those values can guarantee equal opportunity and

social cohesion.

During its forthcoming presidency of the Council of

Europe, Andorra will prioritize education as a tool for

encouraging democratic values, respect for human rights

and the rule of law. Andorra is particularly sensitive

to education, not only in the sphere of international

cooperation, but also domestically, as it is aware that

its unique, multicultural and multilingual educational

approach, featuring three public systems — Andorran,

French and Spanish — in a small society with its own

identity, has not been a problem, but rather an asset and

an essential element of social cohesion.

We see that commitment to multiculturalism and

multilingualism within the francophone community.

The commitment to openness and exchange among

individuals is good and is far from self-absorption in

one’s own language or culture. Now is not the time

for self-absorption but rather for openness; it is time

for ambition and not protectionism. The work of the

francophone community is deeply aligned with our

values, and we will convene in Africa at the forthcoming

Summit of the Francophonie to defend the spirit of

openness to democratic values and human rights.

That commitment to multiculturalism also belies

the strong bonds we feel with our Latin American

friends. Our involvement within the General Assembly

in the preparatory work for the forthcoming Cadiz

summit, to be hosted by our dear neighbour Spain,

should also be viewed through the prism of openness

and the defence of democratic values, human rights and

the rule of law.

The Principality of Andorra today reasserts its

commitment to the founding principles of the United

Nations: the promotion of peace, liberty, justice, democracy and human rights. Those are not utopian

values and principles; quite the contrary, it would be

unrealistic and unthinkable to seek to establish stability

in the world with any other values. What is important

is to come here today to proclaim not that Andorra

has one of the oldest and most stable parliaments and

political systems on the planet, but that at the end of the

thirteenth century its political system was consolidated

in a very short period of time and in circumstances that

were far from ideal. In a very brief time span, the same

system was again able to adapt to modern reality at the

end of the twentieth century. In our country, indeed, it

was not until 1971 that women were entitled to vote.

Yet only 40 years later, in 2011 the people of Andorra

elected a Parliament with the second-highest number of

female representatives in the world. This is why I spoke

earlier of viewing things from a perspective of process

and evolution.

History shows us that what appeared utopian

not long ago has become reality today. We should

not assume that things cannot change and cannot get

better. The limits that the United Nations seems to have

encountered after almost seven decades of existence

will be overcome one day, and today’s challenges will

be viewed as things of the past. The numerous countries

that form the international community have shown how

rapidly things can change when there is a will to act.

One only has to take a look at the determination with

which many of the members of this Assembly have

joined forces and coordinated their policies to find

solutions to the grave financial and economic crisis that

has rocked the world over the last few years.

The need for rapid and profound change has also

arrived in Andorra. A year ago, we stated in our speech

that our country had one of the most closed economies

on the planet and that it posed significant barriers to

foreign investment, as foreigners had to meet costly

requirements to attain full economic rights. Today,

only 12 months later, the Andorran economy is 100 per

cent open to foreign capital, and every foreign resident

is granted full economic rights from the first day of his

or her residency.

Earlier, I referred to openness in a broad sense,

but today economic openness should enable us to

rediscover the path of inclusive growth that has defined

us, albeit now within an open and diversified economy

geared to the pursuit of competitiveness, innovation

and general progress. This entire process has been

accompanied by an updating of the Andorran model,

with an appropriate tax framework and a commitment

to transparency towards the international community.

The whole process is based on the belief that recovery

means not faint-hearted withdrawal, but rather the

ambition to open up to the world and a willingness to

compete. That conviction is the driving force behind

the implementation by the Principality of Andorra of

some of the most significant socioeconomic changes in

its entire history.

Twenty years ago, the United Nations pioneered

the promotion of sustainable development. When the

international community met in Rio de Janeiro in

1992, at what was called the Earth Summit, the need

to consider sustainable growth became manifest and

the subject was tackled from a threefold economic,

environmental and social perspective. The conclusions

of that Rio Summit, to which scant or no attention has

been paid, are today so topical that the United Nations

Conference on Sustainable Development, held in Rio

in June, stressed the very same policies. However,

although 20 years ago sustainability might have seemed

solely an environmental issue, experience has shown

us that public finance, economic growth and our

model of social protections must also be sustainable.

The challenge of sustainability is now, more than ever,

shared and interdisciplinary.

Many years ago, the United Nations was created

in the belief that maintaining peace and security in

the world was unrealistic without advances in human

rights, in international law and in democracy. There

can be no lasting peace or security without liberty or

justice. More recently, we have all learned not only

that separating democracy from economic progress

makes no sense, but also that it is foolish to believe

in unrestrained, unlimited growth at any cost, the

consequences of which we are still feeling.

A few days ago, at the reception for the diplomatic

corps, our Episcopal Co-Prince, Joan Enric Vives

Sicilia, noted the dangerous tendency to prioritize

having rather than being. We must learn the lessons of

recent years, in which the desire to have everything we

wanted too often led us to forget to pursue everything

we needed. We must build a more sustainable, more

interrelated and more co-responsible world in order to

lay the foundations for more secure economic growth.

A pledge to progress and prosperity also means support

for democracy, for security and for peace.