14 June 2010: The Foreign Affairs Council of the EU, which met in Luxembourg on 14 June 2010, has agreed on the EU position on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) ahead of the UN General Assembly High-Level Plenary Meeting scheduled to take place in New York, US, in September 2010. The position includes references to climate change and climate finance.

According to the Council Conclusions, the EU remains convinced that the MDGs are interlinked, mutually dependent and reinforcing, requiring a holistic, rights-based approach that takes into account local contexts. The EU underlines the interdependence of the MDGs with human rights, gender equality, democracy, good governance, development, peace and security, as well as climate and energy.
The Conclusions make reference to the Policy Coherence for Development work programme outlined by the European Commission for the period 2010-2013, which supports a strengthened focus on trade and finance, climate change, food security, migration and security as the policy areas being potentially most relevant for meeting the MDGs.
The EU stresses that aid effectiveness principles must apply to all spending channeled to developing countries, including South-South cooperation and funding from non-State actors, local authorities and charity organizations, including climate and biodiversity finance. Furthermore, the EU calls on partners to spend climate finance in line with the Copenhagen Accord and the aid effectiveness principles, recalling that the EU will implement its commitment to provide €2.4 billion fast-start funding annually for developing countries from 2010 to 2012, with full and coordinated reports from the EU and its member States before the 16th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC in Cancun, Mexico, at the end of 2010, and on a yearly basis thereafter. [Council Conclusions]