YouSaid · the spoken record

Olaf Scholz

lines on the record: 37
first: 2022-09-24
most recent: 2023-09-24
sittings or episodes: 2
sources: un-general-debate

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“8) Germany’s history holds many lessons about the dangers of such nostalgia. That is why we chose a different path when we joined the United Nations 50 years ago — the path of peace and reconciliation, the path of recognizing existing borders, the path of cooperation with all in the pursuit of a better and more equitable world. It started with a solemn promise that we made 50 years ago. a promise every one of us made upon joining the United Nations — to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security. Let us all do our best to live up to that promise.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“must finally understand that, for let us not forget that Russia is responsible for this war. and it is Russia’s President who can end it at any time with one single order. But if he is to do so. he has to understand that we. the States of the United Nations, are serious about our principles and that in the multipolar world of the twenty- first century, we do not see a place for revisionism and imperialism. No one here in New York has expressed that as aptly as our colleague, the Ambassador of Kenya. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he said this in the Security Council: “Rather than form nations that looked ever backwards into history with a dangerous nostalgia, we chose to look forward to a greatness that none of our many nations and peoples had ever known.” (S/PV.8970, />.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“Of course, my thoughts are with the Ukrainians, who are fighting for their lives and their freedom, for independence and their country’s territorial integrity in order to safeguard those very principles to which we have all committed ourselves in the United Nations Charter. But Russia’s war of aggression has caused immense suffering not only in Ukraine. People around the world are suffering as a result of inflation, growing debts, the scarcity of fertilizer, hunger and increasing poverty. Precisely because the war is having unbearable consequences around the world, it is right and proper that the world be involved in the quest for peace. At the same time, we should beware of phoney solutions that represent peace in name only, for peace without freedom is called oppression. Peace without justice is called dictatorship. Moscow, too.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“Ultimately, it is up to the General Assembly to decide on a reform of the Security Council. Until then. Germany would like to shoulder responsibility as a non-permanent member of the Security Council, and I ask members to support our candidacy for 2027-2028. When I speak of peace these days before the Assembly, my thoughts are with those for whom peace is a distant dream. My thoughts are with the Sudanese, who have become victims of a brutal power struggle between two warlords, and with the men and women in Eastern Congo and. as we speak, the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, where resumed military activities will lead only to a dead end and must come to a halt.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“We should also talk about common rules for the possible use of generative artificial intelligence as a weapon. Another question that will define our future is how the United Nations itself represents the reality of a multipolar world. To date, it has not done so sufficiently. That is most evident in the composition of the Security Council. I am therefore delighted that a growing number of partners — including three permanent members — have stated that they want to see progress on reform. However, one thing is clear. Africa deserves greater representation, as do Asia and Latin America. Under that premise, we can negotiate a text with various options. No country should obstruct those open-ended negotiations with excessively high demands. Germany will not do so either.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“Germany is the second-largest donor of humanitarian assistance around the globe and will continue to stand by the people who need it most. The United Nations itself must not cling to the status quo. and by that I mean two things. First, the United Nations must tackle the challenges of the future, just as Secretary-General Guterres has proposed. One of the major issues, in my view, is how we can ensure that innovation and technological advances are used by humankind as a whole. Artificial intelligence, for example, offers tremendous opportunities. At the same time, it can cement the division of the world if only a few benefit from it. if algorithms only take part of reality into account, or if access is limited to richer countries. That is why Germany is actively fostering exchange on the Global Digital Compact.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“I have been calling — most recently at the G-20 Summit in Delhi — for the multilateral development banks to reform so that they can contribute more to financing the protection of global public goods such as the climate and biodiversity or the prevention of pandemics. That is what the G-20 decided in Delhi. Germany is also providing financial support for this reform. We will be the first country to invest hybrid capital, to the tune of €305 million, in the World Bank. It is estimated that this capital will enable the World Bank to provide more than €2 billion in additional loans. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has pointed to the rapidly increasing demand and humanitarian needs arising from the many crises worldwide.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“Germany and German businesses are open to entering into partnerships of that very nature. Of course, in the coming years we will all face the challenge of leading our economies. our energy supplies and our infrastructure to a resource-efficient, climate-neutral future. That will require major investment. To create the right conditions to bring about that investment, we have to address the debt crisis in many countries and modernize the international financial architecture. I said at the start that Germany is not clinging to the status quo. including on this issue either. We want something to change.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“Our Summit yesterday brought home to me how urgent it is that we make up for lost time when it comes to the SDGs. too. We therefore want to use next year’s Summit of the Future, which we are currently preparing with our friends from Namibia, to pick up the pace and push ahead with the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development It is important to me in that context that we ensure more private investment in Africa. Asia. Latin America and the Caribbean. Let me offer just one example. The entire world is currently talking about the diversification of supply chains and raw materials security. Would it not be a start if at least the first production step were to take place on-site, where the raw material deposits are to be found? Certainly.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“we tripled our contribution last year to €6 billion. We have therefore kept our word, as will the industrialized countries as a whole, which will hit their target of €100 billion for international climate financing for the first time this year. That is an important and overdue signal before we take stock in Dubai this December and negotiate new climate action plans for the period after 2030. I believe that it is important that we be as concrete and as binding as possible. That is why I advocate that we set clear targets in Dubai for the expansion of renewable energies and for greater energy efficiency. We will be equally ambitious when it comes to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Climate action or development — that trade-off will not work.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“However, our planet will not survive if that economic development is attained with the technologies and production processes of the nineteenth or twentieth centuries — with combustion engines and coal-fired power plants. That leads us to one conclusion — we have to decouple economic development from carbon dioxide emissions. That is already happening in many countries, for we have the solutions and technologies. As a key nation in the field of technology, we are offering to cooperate here for the common good. If producers of renewable energies and their industrial users come together across continents, we will create new prosperity together in many places around the world. I am pleased to announce today that Germany is honouring its pledges on international climate financing. From €2 billion in 2014 and more than €4 billion in 2020.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“Those principles must also form the basis when it comes to reshaping our multipolar world. Only then can the global challenges of our time be mastered. The greatest challenge of all is anthropogenic climate change. Of course, the traditional industrialized countries have a very special responsibility in the fight against the climate crisis. However, many other countries are among the biggest emitters today. Instead of waiting for others, we all have to do more together to achieve the Paris climate goals. Each and every one of us must have the opportunity to gain the same level of prosperity as people in Europe. North America or countries such as Japan or Australia.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“All of us have an interest in ensuring that the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of our countries are respected. And all of us should know what that requires — namely, that we also grant those rights to others. Those golden rules are universal, even if many of us were not yet sitting around the table when the Charter of the United Nations was adopted in 1945. Yet only 10 years later, in Bandung. Indonesia, it was the African and Asian States liberated from colonialism that raised their voices to call for self-determination, territorial integrity, the sovereign equality of all States and a world without colonialism and imperialism. That seems more relevant today than ever before. It is by those principles that we. whether large or small, will all be judged.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“Only the United Nations — on the basis of the values enshrined in its Charter — can fully realize the aspirations of universal representation and sovereign equality for all. That cannot be said of the Group of Seven, the Group of 20 (G-20) — as important as they are for achieving international consensus — the BRICS group of Brazil. Russian Federation. India. China and South Africa, or of other groups. I know that some will counter by asking: Is the United Nations not all too often unable to take action, paralysed by the antagonisms of its heterogeneous membership? My response to them is that the obstruction of a few. no matter how influential they, should not lead us to forget that we. the overwhelming majority of States, agree on many things. All of us — almost all of us — want force as a political instrument to remain banned.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“Existing alliances must be strengthened and partners sought, for that is the only way to reduce the risks of excessively one-sided dependencies. That is all the more true in a world which, in contrast to 50 years ago. no longer has only two centres of power. Rather, it has many. Multipolarity is not a new order. Anyone who assumes that smaller countries are the backyards of larger ones is mistaken. Multipolarity is not a normative category but a description of today’s reality. Anyone seeking order in a multipolar world has to start here at the United Nations. That is why Germany supports the United Nations system and. as the second-largest contributor after the United States, pays its regular budget assessments with full conviction.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“It is to those ideals that we Germans owe the great fortune of living in a unified country today, in peace with our neighbours, friends and partners around the world. At the same time, what Willy Brandt stated here 50 years is all the more true today: “In a world in which we are all increasingly dependent on each other, a policy for peace must not stop on our own doorstep” (ibid., para. 33). German policy cannot and never will be limited to pursuing our interests with no consideration for others, because we know that our freedom, our democracy and our prosperity are deeply rooted in the well-being of Europe and the world. That is why the order of the day is not less cooperation, sometimes packaged today as decoupling or as cooperation only among the like-minded. Instead, we need more cooperation.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“When I look back here today at the beginnings of our membership of the United Nations. I do so not only out of historical interest, but because the prohibition of the use of force remains the unfulfilled core pledge of our United Nations. That is because the inviolability of borders and the sovereign equality of States also have to be defended in our multipolar world by us all. and because we today — especially today — need the courage, creative energy and will to fill in the rifts, which are deeper than ever. Germany is strongly committed to those three ideals: the renunciation of the use of force as a political instrument, the rejection of any kind of revisionism and the determination to engage in cooperation beyond any dividing factors.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“The first was the clear commitment of both German States to resolve conflicts without force. That was laid down in the Basic Treaty between Bonn and East Berlin, as well as in the treaties that the Federal Republic of Germany concluded with its eastern neighbours. The second prerequisite was the renunciation of any form of revisionism by recognizing Germany’s new borders, drawn after the Second World War. as inviolable. At the time, many people in West Germany were opposed to that. In retrospect, however, it proved to be the right decision. Finally, the third prerequisite was a foreign policy that did not ignore the realities of the Cold War and that, at the same time, always remained focused on overcoming the status quo — that is to say. the confrontation between the blocs and thus also the unnatural division of Germany.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“Fifty years ago. almost to the day. two German States joined the United Nations: the then German Democratic Republic, as the 133rd Member, and the Federal Republic of Germany, as the 134th Member. That step is of great importance to us Germans to this very day. for membership of the United Nations enabled my country — the instigator of terrible and horrific crimes — to return to the family of peace-loving nations. We are profoundly grateful for that chance. That return was not free of requirements. The accession of the two German States was preceded by a visionary policy of detente. The aim. as my predecessor — Federal Chancellor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Willy Brandt — said here in New York 50 years ago. was to “fill in the rifts left behind by the cold war” (A/PV.2128./mra. 9). Three things were essential for that.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“Such approaches are pillars that support our international order because they deliver results from which citizens in all our countries stand to benefit and that they expect from the United Nations. “We the peoples” — it is not for nothing that those are the first three words of our Charter. We should note that those words are not “We the Member States” or “We the representatives”. We have an obligation to our peoples. We owe them a global order that allows them to live in peace, which protects their rights and which opens up opportunities for education, health and development for them. Such an order does not come about by itself. Defending, further developing and strengthening it is our task as the United Nations. Germany extends the hand of cooperation to all Member States in that endeavour.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“That gave rise to new models of global cooperation that have one thing in common, namely, the fact that they are characterized by joint responsibility and mutual solidarity. We are fighting the hunger crisis with a new Alliance for Global Food Security, and I would like to invite all Member States to join the Alliance. We launched the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment in order to jointly mobilize $600 billion for public and private infrastructure investments around the world over the next five years. In doing so, we are taking a big step towards implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. With a newly emerging climate club, we are pressing ahead with friends and partners worldwide to implement the Paris Agreement on Climate Change even more swiftly and efficiently.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“As President of the G-7 this year, it is therefore a key priority for me to promote a new form of cooperation with the countries of the global South that not only claims to take place on a level playing field, but one on which actors genuinely see eye to eye, especially since that level playing field has long existed de facto if we consider the increasing political, economic and demographic influence of Asia, Africa and Latin America. From the outset, we coordinated our objectives very closely with Indonesia, as the holder of the Group of 20 presidency. We have involved the countries holding the chairmanship of the African Union and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, as well as India and South Africa, in our G-7 discussions.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“More cooperation, more partnership and more involvement are the only reasonable response, whether in the fight against climate change, global health risks, inflation and disrupted supply chains or our approach to displacement and migration. I say that with profound conviction. The insight that openness and cooperation safeguard peace and prosperity has made the past decades the happiest in the history of my country so far.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“For many years, Germany has been committed to its reform and its expansion, first and foremost to include the countries of the global South. Germany is also prepared to assume greater responsibility as a permanent member and, initially, as a non-permanent member for the term from 2027 to 2028. I kindly ask Member States to support our candidacy — the candidacy of a country that respects the principles of the United Nations and offers and seeks cooperation. To my mind, it is entirely natural that the up-and-coming, dynamic countries and regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America must be given a stronger political voice on the world stage. That is in all of our interests, as it gives rise to joint responsibility and greater acceptance of our decisions. Nationalism and isolation will not solve the challenges of our age.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Particularly those who bear particular responsibility for our order in the world by dint of their strength and their influence should have an interest in bolstering our common institutions. The former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights briefed us about the situation of the Uighurs in Xinjiang a few weeks ago. China should implement the High Commissioner’s recommendations. That would be a sign of sovereignty and strength and a guarantee of change for the better. A third principle must be taken into consideration if we are to preserve the international order. We must adapt our rules and institutions to the reality of the twenty-first century. Far too often, those rules and institutions reflect the world of 30, 50 or 70 years ago. That also goes for the Security Council.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“In Germany in recent years, we have taken in millions of refugees from the Middle East, Africa, Afghanistan and, most recently, Ukraine. That is something of which we are proud. But we also have to pay heed and take action in places where hundreds of thousands are made to endure suffering, tyranny and torture in prison camps or jails, such as in North Korea, Syria, Iran and Belarus. We must pay heed and take action when the Taliban deprive women and girls in Afghanistan of their most basic rights, and we must pay heed and take action when Russia commits war crimes in Mariupol, Bucha and Irpin. We will bring the murderers to justice. We are doing everything in our power to support the International Criminal Court and the Independent International Committee of Inquiry on Ukraine, established by the Human Rights Council.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Nowhere does that insight seem more obvious to me than in the protection of human rights, since they reflect the deepest need of each and every one of us to live our lives in freedom, unharmed and in dignity. That lies at the heart of what makes us humans, who we are and what we have in common, no matter where we come from, no matter what we believe and no matter whom we love. I say that with the history of my country in mind. Germany, which betrayed all civilized values with the murder of 6 million Jews, an act that is without parallel, is aware of just how fragile our civilization is. At the same time, we have an obligation to respect and defend human rights at all times and in all places. My country is the second-largest donor to the United Nations system and the second-largest donor of humanitarian assistance.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“With that in mind, we reiterated our intention at the Group of Seven (G-7) Summit in Germany in June to forge ahead in order to achieve the 1.5°C target, not despite the war and the energy crisis, but precisely because climate neutrality also leads to greater energy security. We stand by our pledges to support emerging economies and developing countries in their efforts to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change, with new, fair energy transition partnerships, for example. We will not abandon countries that are struggling the most in the face of loss and damage as a result of climate change. By the time of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Egypt, we therefore want to establish a global shield against climate risks. Our yardstick must be the obligations that we have entered into.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Our message is this: we stand firmly at the side of those under attack, for the protection of the lives and the freedom of the Ukrainian people and for the protection of our international order. The second principle for preserving that order is as follows. All of us will be judged against the obligations that we have jointly entered into. Responsibility always begins at home. Let us take climate change, for example, which is the biggest challenge of our generation. We, the industrialized countries and major emitters of greenhouse-gases, have a very special responsibility in that regard.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Today we are witnessing that that sentence also works the other way around. Those who want there to be no hunger must ensure that Putin’s war does not prevail — this war that even in countries far away from Russia is leading to rising prices, energy scarcity and famine. The fact that grain exports have been made possible once again thanks to the mediation efforts of Secretary- General Guterres and Tiirkiye deserves great respect. Germany is also supporting Ukraine with the export of food, and we will stand by Ukraine when it comes to shouldering the enormous costs of rebuilding the country. At an international expert conference that I will host with the President of the European Commission in Berlin on 25 October, together with supporters of Ukraine from all around the world, we will think about how we can manage that Herculean task.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Together with our partners around the world, we imposed tough economic sanctions on the Russian leadership and Russia’s economy. That is how we are making good on a promise that each and every of our countries made when joining the United Nations, namely, to join forces to maintain international peace and security. There is one more thing that I would like to add, which is that not one sack of grain has been held back on account of those sanctions. Russia alone has prevented Ukrainian grain ships from putting out to sea, bombing ports and destroying agricultural enterprises. “Where hunger prevails, there can be no peace.” (A/PV2128, p.3). My predecessor, Nobel Peace Prize winner Willy Brandt, said that when he addressed this Assembly in 1973, as the first Federal Chancellor to do so.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“That is why it was so important that, here in this Hall, 141 countries categorically condemned Russia’s war of occupation (see resolution ES-11/1). But that alone is not enough. If we want the war to end, we cannot be indifferent to how it ends. Putin will give up his war and his imperialist ambitions only if he realizes that he cannot win. In doing so, he is not just destroying Ukraine but is also ruining his own country. That is why we will not accept a peace dictated by Russia. That is why we will not accept any sham referendums. That is why Ukraine must be able to defend itself against Russia’s invasion. We are supporting Ukraine with all our might—financially, economically and with humanitarian assistance, as well as with weapons.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“If we do nothing, then the Charter is but a piece of paper. The Charter calls on all of us to uphold its purposes and principles. We must not stand idly by when a major nuclear Power, armed to the teeth — a founding Member of the United Nations and a permanent member of the Security Council, no less — seeks to shift borders through the use of violence. There is no justification whatsoever for Russia’s war of occupation against Ukraine. President Putin is waging that war with one single objective: to seize Ukraine. Self-determination and political independence do not count for him. There is only one word for that. It is imperialism, plain and simple. The return of imperialism is not only a disaster for Europe; it is also a disaster for our global peaceful order, which is the antithesis of imperialism and neocolonialism.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“The vast majority of us cannot be indifferent to whether the rule of power or the power of rules wins the day. The key question that we as an international community face is this — should we stand helplessly by and watch as some seek to cast us back into a global order in which war is a common instrument of politics, in which independent nations have to submit to their stronger neighbours or their colonial masters, in which prosperity and human rights are a privilege of the lucky few? Or will we manage to stand together and ensure that the multipolar world of the twenty-first century remains a multilateral world? My answer, as a German and a European, is this: we have to manage that. We will manage that if we take three fundamental principles to heart. First, the international order does not happen by itself.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Rules that we, the United Nations, created together. The Charter of the United Nations promises all of us freedom and peaceful coexistence. This Charter is our collective rejection of a world without rules. Our problem is not the absence of rules. Our problem is the lack of willingness to abide by them and enforce them. But the image of a world without rules leads us astray for a second reason. If we do not defend, further develop and strengthen our global order together, then it is not chaos without rules that we face, but a world in which the rules are made by those who can dictate them to us by dint of their military, economic or political power. The alternative to a rules-based world is not anarchy, but the dominion of the strong over the weak.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Unfortunately, I am expressing that commitment at a time when we are getting further away from those noble goals. After decades during which we overcame walls and blocs — a time when we marked the fall of the Iron Curtain and German reunification. After the technological revolution of the Internet and the digital transformation, which have made us more interconnected than ever before, we are now facing a new fragmentation of the world. New wars and conflicts have emerged. Major global crises are piling up before us and are combining and reinforcing one another. Some have even seen this as a harbinger of a world without rules. It is true that the risks to our global order are real. And yet I do not hold with the image of a world without rules — for two reasons: First, our world has clear rules.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“It is with humility and deep respect that I address the General Assembly today — both as the newly elected Chancellor of Germany and as a proud representative to our United Nations. My country and the United Nations are indivisibly linked. Today’s democratic and reunited Germany owes its role on the world stage to our international friends and partners who placed their trust in us to become and to remain a peace-loving member of the international community. We know that we owe our freedom, our stability and our prosperity to an international order with the United Nations at its core. Therefore, my country’s commitment to this Organization and its noble goals — peace, development and equal rights and dignity for every human being — will never wane.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)