Austria, 2014

It is with great respect that

I stand at this rostrum for the first time as Austrian

Foreign Minister. Many eminent world leaders have

stood here before me and laid out their visions on

international challenges and crises. As many may be

able to tell, probably even from the last row, I look a bit

younger than most of the speakers before me. Indeed,

I believe I am the only person under the age of 30 who

has the privilege of speaking here this week. So while

I cannot speak from many years of experience, what I

can offer is the perspective of a young generation.

My generation is the post-Cold War generation.

The Iron Curtain collapsed 25 years ago, when I was 3

years old. For us in Europe, the years after the collapse

of the Iron Curtain were years filled with hope and new

opportunities. We could travel freely, study in foreign

countries and meet people from all over the world.

We grew up in a society where human rights were

respected, where the rule of law was a given, and where

religious freedom was practised. We communicate

without borders on Facebook and Twitter, we have our

entire lives stored on our smartphone, and we consume

the news online.

While the world after the Cold War offered

fascinating new opportunities, it also proved to be not

orderly at all, but quite messy and more uncertain than

many had predicted. Just two years after the Berlin Wall

came down, war returned to Europe in the Western

Balkan countries. Thankfully, the horrors came to an

end, and these countries now have a clear European

perspective. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, we

believed that the world would move forward and that

more and more people would benefit from the same

opportunities that my generation in Western Europe

enjoyed. But the world today seems to be shifting

into reverse. We are facing situations and horrors we

thought we had overcome many years ago. For young

people like myself, who learned about the Cold War

only through history books, it seems unbelievable that

the thinking in terms of confrontational blocs could

return to Europe.

The crisis in Ukraine is probably the most serious

challenge to peace and security Europe has had to face

in decades. In retrospect, it is easy to claim that this

development should have been predictable, and that we

should have foreseen it. But let us be honest. Who would

have predicted that, after three years of negotiations,

President Yanukovych would refuse to sign the

Association Agreement with the European Union? Who

would have predicted that the Maidan movement would

be strong enough to force him to leave the country?

And who would have predicted that Russia would react

by annexing Crimea and would even actively support

separatist movements?

We cannot accept that international law should

be violated and that recognized borders challenged in

Europe once again. At the same time, we need to find

a political solution that goes beyond a mere ceasefire.

We need a solution that offers the prospect of a free,

stable and united Ukraine, a Ukraine which enjoys

strong economic ties with both the European Union

and the Russian Federation. Let us not return to Cold

War thinking, where two blocs face each other. Our

political guideline must be to move from a policy of

“either Europe or Russia” to a logic of “both Europe

and Russia”.

Some people have claimed that Ukraine would

not be in this situation had it not given up its nuclear

weapons. This kind of thinking is dangerous. And we

have to ask ourselves, where would this lead us? As

long as nuclear weapons exist, the risk of their use, on

purpose or by accident, remains real. Let us be clear:

the use of nuclear weapons, more than any other human

action, has the potential to end life on this planet. And,

69 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, let us not

forget that the humanitarian consequences of a single

nuclear explosion are terrifying and long-lasting. The

desire to prevent the humanitarian consequences of

nuclear weapons should unite us all. We therefore hope

that the Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of

Nuclear Weapons in Vienna in December will mark a

real change of direction in international discussions on

nuclear weapons.

Looking beyond our region, we are currently

witnessing a further rise of extremism in the name of

religion, and a new development — foreign terrorist

fighters who come from Western countries and travel

to the Middle East in order to join the fight. There

is no time to lose; we must actively address what is

happening in northern Iraq, where the so-called Islamic

State of Iraq and the Levant is attempting to wipe out

entire religious communities, where children are being

beheaded, mothers raped and fathers hanged because of

their beliefs.

In Europe, we estimate that there are thousands of

foreign fighters with European passports. In our case,

there are more than 140 people from Austria fighting

in the name of a so-called holy war. We all know that

the terrorist organizations operate worldwide. They

get their terrorist fighters by recruiting globally. They

finance themselves through global networks. They

buy arms and other resources on a global scale. And

they use, or rather abuse, the global communication

networks to their benefit.

How is it possible that terrorist organizations have

access to financial and economic resources that allow

them to operate so effectively? How is it possible that

we allow terrorist organizations to abuse the right to

freedom of expression by showing their barbaric acts

on social media? And how is it possible that they are

able to recruit new fighters within our societies?

We all, Governments and the private sector as well,

have a duty to develop preventive measures within our

societies to stop the flow of foreign terrorist fighters,

to cut off financial support to their organizations and

to put an end to the abuse of social media networks

by developing forms of voluntary self-restriction for

those networks. The adoption of Security Council

resolution 2178 (2014) this week was an important first

step, but now we must implement it. And we should

always remind ourselves that the battle lines in this

confrontation are not limited to Iraq or Syria. They run

through our own Western societies.

My generation in Austria was privileged to grow

up in freedom from fear and from want. There are, of

course, other stories to be told of young people growing

up in Afghanistan or the Central African Republic, for

example. Today half of the world’s population is under

25 years of age, and many of them lack adequate nutrition,

health care, education and jobs. All in all, those are not

great prospects for life. The work of the United Nations

on development is therefore crucial to lifting millions

of people out of poverty, helping the hungry and the

sick and educating new generations around the world.

The United Nations needs and deserves our support,

and I can assure the Assembly that Austria fully stands

behind the post-2015 development agenda.

But we must also ensure that respect for human

rights and the rule of law receive proper attention. Only

a society that respects the rights of its citizens can enable

each individual to develop his or her potential. We are

therefore very pleased to be organizing the Second

United Nations Conference on Landlocked Developing

Countries, to be held in Vienna in November. And we

are honoured that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has

agreed to attend the Conference.

I am aware that the list of challenges that the

international community and the United Nations are

facing is long: the situations in Iraq, Ukraine, Syria,

Gaza, the Central African Republic and Mali and the

outbreak of the Ebola disease, to name just a few. In

view of those challenges, the United Nations needs and

deserves our full support. I want to especially thank

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for his tireless efforts

at the helm of the United Nations. I can assure him

that Austria remains committed to working actively

within the United Nations and its bodies to support his

work and to address our global challenges, whether as

peacekeepers, through our presidency of the Economic

and Social Council or as a member of the Human

Rights Council. We are particularly proud to host the

United Nations Office at Vienna, which has become

an Austrian landmark. Austria has a long tradition of

building bridges and serving as a place for international

dialogue. We will continue to do so in the future and to

offer our contribution to making the world a little bit

safer and better for the generations to come.