Outgoing Prime Minister Dick Schoof emphasized in his speech The importance of the organization for the General Meeting of the United Nations. “Without the UN there would be no disarmain treaties. No international court. Without the UN – which is often the only organization that can help help in the most difficult areas in the world – millions of people would be deprived of food, clean water and medical help,” said Schoof.
Earlier this week, US President Donald Trump still expressed fierce criticism of the multilateral organization. Trump wondered what the usefulness is of the UN, which existed for eighty years this year. “This year we heard that the UN can no longer justify its existence,” said Schoof. “Whoever says that has forgotten where we come from.”
According to Schoof, we have been considering the performance that the UN achieved in the past eighty years ‘as a matter of course’. “We have failed to look back at where we come from and to all the milestones we have reached on the way. And although the situation may be particularly difficult at the moment, I also know this: it has never been easy,” said Schoof.
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He also underlined that the UN is important in the changing world order. “The world has changed, the international relations have changed, the way we work together has changed. We have to keep up with the times.”
But, said Schoof, the new age requires new ways, no new principles. According to him, the principles of the UN that were recorded eighty years ago remain unchanged. The most important of these is the protection of the international legal order, says Schoof. He thereby referred to, among other things, the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. “We will continue to insist on the Israeli government at national and European level to drastically change its course.”
Schoof ended his speech by saying that he realizes how much work is still to be done. How many areas there are in which the UN has fallen short, and that the organization has waited too long to adapt to the changing world. “So I understand that some of us may be tempted to fall into despair. And yet we cannot allow that.”
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