Migration and Middle East top EU agenda at UN

The migrant crisis and the Middle East Peace Process will top the EU’s agenda when world leaders meet in New York for the UN general assembly.
The event begins on 28 September and lasts one week.

 

This year’s edition will start with a speech by Pope Francis, on 25 September, likely urging European countries to show compassion to refugees.
It will see Palestine, a UN “observer state”, hang its flag on the UN building for the first time in history.

 

It will see Russian leader Vladimir Putin come for the first time in 10 years and not long after invading Ukraine.

 

It will also hear from Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, the current chair of the African Union, and Sudan’s fugitive president Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

 

For his part, Council chief Donald Tusk got a good spot to speak on behalf of the EU – shortly before lunch on 29 September.

 

But the big EU day is 30 September, when UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon chairs a high-level meeting on migration, while EU foreign relations chief Federica Mogherini chairs an event on Middle East peace talks.

 

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