Remarks by HR/VP Federica Mogherini at the joint press point fol

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Good afternoon.

We are pleased today to welcome the Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, Amina Mohammed, who makes us the honour to join the Development Ministers today in Brussels to work together on the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, the Agenda 2030. I had the pleasure of meeting her last week in New York together with the [UN] Secretary General [António] Guterres and my first message is one of gratitude for the leadership that she has personally shown and the UN system is showing on sustainable development but also on the related agenda that is a fundamental pillar of our own European security and development. We believe that investing in development but also in peacekeeping, in humanitarian, in climate change is a way to strengthen our own resilience, our own security, and this is why the United Nations system will always find the European Union at this side.

We strongly believe that the multilateral approach that the UN represents is the way to go. This is why also today, with the Development Ministers, we have adopted a new Consensus on Development that will contribute greatly to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals on the external side.   We will also obviously do our part when it comes to the European policies on our internal dimension.

So Amina [Mohammed], once again, thank you very much for being together with us today and I leave you the floor.