During the formal sitting of the EP&nbsp; in Strasbourg, Antonio GUTERRES, Secretary-General of the United Nations, expresses himself in front of the MEPs.

Strasbourg

EU - United Nations (T)

migration and refugees in Europe (T)

speech

GUTERRES, António (PT)

formal sitting

Address by António GUTERRES, Secretary-General of the United Nations: extracts from the Formal sitting

Arrival of Ant&oacute;nio GUTERRES, Secretary-General of the United Nations together with Antonio TAJANI, EP President, to the hemicycle in Strasbourg

SOUNDBITE (French), Antonio TAJANI, We cannot continue to witness the bombings in Syria, famine in Africa and the thousands of people who die in the dessert and in the Mediterranean.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ant&#243;nio GUTERRES, UN Secretary General, European contribution is today an absolutely essential part of what is necessary to make the UN effective. And I want to express my deep gratitude for that.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ant&oacute;nio GUTERRES, UN Secretary General, We need to strengthen our own capacity to solve many of the conflicts around the world, but that forces us to look into their nature. Look at Syria; these conflicts are conflicts that nobody is winning, everybody is losing (&hellip;) And we see Syria clearly as one of the feeding factors of global terrorism. Now the point is that we need to create the conditions to make those that are parties to the conflict, but especially those who have an influence on the parties of the conflict, to understand that indeed those are conflicts where nobody is winning, everybody is losing and in which the contradictions of interests that might interest are much smaller than the absolute need to put an end to this nonsense and to eliminate these terrible threats for our own global security.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ant&oacute;nio GUTERRES, UN Secretary General, If we want to champion human rights, we need to have moral authority, and the recent migration and refugee crisis in the world has undermined to a certain extent the moral authority of several countries around the world to champion human rights in an effective way.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ant&oacute;nio GUTERRES, UN Secretary General, Those countries that will not bet in the green economy will inevitably lag behind in development in the years to come. It&rsquo;s the right thing to do, it&rsquo;s the smart thing to do, and we count on Europe to lead this effort at global level (applause).

SOUNDBITE (English), Ant&oacute;nio GUTERRES, UN Secretary General, Some of the rules and regulations that were accumulated for decades in the UN seem to be created to make sure that we are not able to act effectively and we need to make sure that we create the trust between member states, namely Westerner countries and the G77, to understand that there is a win-win solution making the UN more flexible, but at the same time, with decentralisation, simplification of procedures, with more freedom of movement at the Secretariat and at the same time with more transparency and more accountability, to make sure that there is fully responsibility for anything we do.