Statement by President von der Leyen with António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations

Dear António Guterres,

What a pleasure to have you here, and a warm welcome to the European Commission.

First of all, let me congratulate you for your appointment for a second mandate. I think the United Nations are very lucky and can be very grateful to have you at the helm of this big institution.

And I wanted to assure you that - and you know that - the European Union and the European Commission always stand by your side. We support you in your tireless work to strengthen multilateralism and to improve the rules-based order, globally, for all the topics we are dealing with together - be it peace and security, or the support for refugees, or overcoming the pandemic, but also fighting climate change.

So we are very happy that we have you here today in our College. We are, of course, also supporting you on your reform agenda and very curious on what you call ‘our common agenda' where we always volunteer to take a leading role.

So once again a very warm welcome.