site.btaBulgarian Foreign Minister at G20 Meeting: EU Is UN's Biggest Donor

Sofia, May 22 (BTA) - Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva Monday took part in the G20 Foreign Ministers Meeting in Buenos Aires as head of the EU delegation, her ministry said in a press release Tuesday. Addressing the participants, she said that in order to respond successfully to the global crises, threats and challenges, the international community should have an effective multilateral system bases on universal values. If international organizations do not rediscover their role in this process, others will fill the vacuum, Zaharieva added.

She said that in addition to the political support it provides to the United Nations, the EU is the biggest financial donor in the UN system: the Member States cover 30.38 per cent of the organization's budget, 33.17 per cent of the resources for peacekeeping missions, and nearly half of the resources for the UN's various programmes and funds.

Zaharieva went on to say that the EU sees the G20 as a positive example of promoting multilateralism in international relations. She called on G20 to uphold trade relations based on the strict rules and practices within the World Trade Organization (WTO), and to confirm the decisiveness with which it opposes protectionism and unfair trade practices.

It is an EU's priority to preserve the WTO dispute settlement system, improve cyber security in the financial sector, and promote the hybrid approach to the funding of infrastructure projects, the Bulgarian Foreign Minister also said.

She stressed the importance of taking into account the changes on the job market, noting that a policy for guaranteeing quality jobs should be elaborated.

The Group of Twenty (G20) started in 1999 as a meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis. Now it is the premier forum for international economic cooperation and decision-making of its members, the 19 countries with the biggest economies in the world plus the EU.