Ladies and gentlemen of the press,

First of all, let me express my deep appreciation for the excellent cooperation between the EU and the UN, and the strong support of the EU to the UN and to multilateralism.

We live in a chaotic world, with the superpowers at odds with each other.

We have a situation of impunity, where any country or any armed group thinks that it can do whatever it wants, because there's no accountability.

And when we live in a chaotic world, it's very important to stick to principles.

And the principles are clear: The United Nations Charter, international law, territorial integrity of countries, international humanitarian law.

And that is the reason why we believe it's essential to have peace for Ukraine, but peace fully in line with the principles, which means peace respecting the charter, international law and the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine.

That is the reason why we believe, for the same reasons, that we need a ceasefire in Gaza. As we condemned the terror attacks of the 7th of October, and as we condemned other violations of international humanitarian law by Hamas, we also condemned the fact that we are witnessing a number of civilian casualties in Gaza that is unprecedented in my time as Secretary-General.

The basic principle of international humanitarian law is the protection of civilians. We must stick to principles, in Ukraine as in Gaza, without double standards, and at the same time, we must push the world to move progressively into some orderly form of multipolarity with strong multilateral institutions.

And there is only one fundamental way to have a multipolar world. It is with the leadership of a strong and united European Union. We strongly appeal the European Union to play a very active role in relation to the central questions, the existential questions, that threaten today's world: Climate change, the uncontrolled development of artificial intelligence and the deep inequalities that we face.