Czech Republic, 2010

First, I would like to

congratulate you, Sir, on your election to the very

responsible post of President of the General Assembly

at its sixty-fifth session.

I have the privilege of representing the Czech

Republic, a country in the very heart of Europe that has

been actively involved in United Nations activities

from the very beginning and will continue to be so. We

are actively involved in a number of United Nations

bodies, and Czech soldiers and experts have

participated in United Nations peacekeeping missions

for many decades. It is in our interests for this

Organization to remain a respected high-level forum,

contributing to prosperity, stability and peaceful

solutions to conflicts around the world.

It has been said here many times in the past few

days that today’s world is very different from that of

1945, when this Organization was founded by

51 States. It now consists of 192. That is not merely a

quantitative change; it is much more. My country is

therefore deeply convinced that the structure of the

United Nations also needs to be different, especially

that of the Security Council, which should be reformed

to reflect the geopolitical, economic and demographic

reality of the twenty-first century. It is frustrating that

discussions of such reform have gone on for the past

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16 years without results. It is time to come up with

concrete results, and my country is ready to support

them.

Changes of this kind are necessary; on the other

hand, some things must continue unchanged. I do not

believe that the United Nations needs to search for a

new mission. Its goals should remain those defined in

the original Charter: to maintain international peace

and security, to develop friendly relations among

nations, and to achieve international cooperation in

solving international problems. The United Nations

should not diverge from these principles. It should not

search for alternative or substitute projects to replace

those that enhance peace, freedom and democracy. It

should remain an intergovernmental platform, based on

the plurality of views of its Member States and on

mutual respect for their sometimes differing positions.

Let me briefly touch on two issues that form part

of the current United Nations agenda. The first is the

worldwide economic crisis and the methods used to

overcome it. I am afraid that we are moving in the

wrong direction. The anti-crisis measures that have

been proposed and already partly implemented follow

from the assumption that the crisis was a failure of

markets and that the right way out is more regulation

of markets. This is a mistaken assumption. It will not

be possible to prevent any future crises by implementing

substantial, market-damaging macroeconomic and regulatory

Government interventions, as is being done now. That

will only destroy markets, and with them the chances

for economic growth and prosperity in developed and

developing countries alike.

The solution to this or any other crisis does not

lie in increasing protectionism, and it is a positive

factor that most Governments have behaved quite

rationally in this respect. Nor does the solution lie in

more bureaucracy, in creating new governmental or

supranational agencies, or in aiming at global

governance of the world’s economy. On the contrary,

this is the time for international organizations,

including the United Nations, to reduce their spending,

slim down their administrations and leave the solutions

to the Governments of the Member States, which are

directly accountable to the citizens of their countries.

Developing countries should not be prevented

from growing economically. They need access to

foreign markets and they need free trade. It was in this

forum last year that I emphasized that we must pay

attention to the costs and benefits of our decisions.

Developing countries must not be forced into

agreements on ever more ambitious targets in the fight

against climate change, particularly at a time when the

developed countries themselves are far from meeting

those targets. The United Nations should not have an

all-encompassing agenda. It should not turn away from

political topics towards scientific ones. It is here not to

determine what science is, but to engage its Member

States in rational and reasoned debate about political

issues. The most harmful political debate we have

witnessed in the past couple of years is about the

climate and global warming.

We should not give up on elemental values and

principles that most of us share, and this brings me to

the second issue I wish to mention here today —

nuclear non proliferation. In April, my country hosted

an important event during which the President of

Russia and the President of the United States signed

the Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and

Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. We see the

Treaty as an important step forward and as a visible

sign of our efforts to make our complicated world

safer. Let us hope that it will be taken further in the

foreseeable future.

We do not dispute the right of any country to use

atomic energy for peaceful purposes, but it must do so

in a responsible way. It is not possible for some

countries to ignore agreed and respected international

standards, to threaten stability in their regions and to

increase the dangers of proliferation.

The United Nations is a unique forum at which

small and big countries alike are represented. They are

countries with different political, economic and social

systems; different neighbours; different historical

experiences and geopolitical positions; and, more

importantly, different levels of income, wealth and

development. This is precisely what makes the United

Nations unique and irreplaceable. Instead of

increasingly becoming a source of funds for various,

sometimes very dubious non-governmental

organizations that — without any accountability or

control — seek to profit from United Nations activities,

the United Nations should strive to be an efficient body

in which States and their peoples are represented. Its

task is not to push for global governance and play the

central role in it. The United Nations exists primarily

to enhance friendly relations among its Members and

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to look for solutions to problems that cannot be

confined to national boundaries.

I wish you every success in your office,

Mr. President, and I would like to assure you that the

Czech Republic will continue to be an active Member

of the United Nations.