Germany is in the running for a seat on the Security Council when the UN General Assembly elects new members to the most powerful body within the UN on Wednesday. According to the United Nations Charter, the Security Council “bears primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.”
The decisions of the Council are binding on all UN member states. It can impose sanctions, deploy peacekeeping missions and authorize the use of military force. The Security Council has five permanent veto-wielding members: the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and France.
“I would say the prospects are good, but it is a competition and it is democracy,” German Foreign Minister Johann Waddefull told DW during a visit to UN headquarters in New York in April. “So we can win. We can lose. Both are possible. We have good arguments. We are engaged in this world. We are engaged in the UN system. It (Germany) is the second largest donor. And we have some experience because we have already been in the Security Council six times as a non-permanent member.”
Germany is number 2 among contributors to the United Nations
On its website, Ministry of External Affairs Citing Germany’s financial contributions to strengthen its case, it says: “As the second-largest voluntary contributor after the United States, Germany has been a reliable partner of the United Nations for more than 50 years.”
Johannes Warwick, professor of international relations at Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, does not believe success is guaranteed for Germany. “For decades, Germany was widely accepted as a driving force behind multilateral political solutions in many parts of the world. There are now many divisive issues,” he told DW, citing the Israel-Gaza conflict, the Iran war and the Ukraine war as examples. Ultimately, Warwick said financial arguments may be the deciding factor.
Germany accused of double standards
What does Germany want to do with this seat? In the short film titled “More than a seat at the table”, which was made specifically to campaign for Germany’s bid, the message is: “We are ready to take a seat to stand up. For dignity, justice and peace.”
On its website, the Foreign Ministry writes: “In the Security Council, Germany wants to focus on conflict prevention, crisis resolution, climate and security issues.” Since these are goals that almost anyone would support, they can hardly be used as a unique selling point for Germany.
Some aspects of the German bid seem like a counter to US President Donald Trump’s strongman policy, such as when the German Foreign Office calls for a “rules-based international order” and the legitimacy of international law. “The UN system is under pressure,” German Foreign Minister Waddefull told DW in New York. However, he added, “I believe diplomacy remains very important so that the law of the jungle does not apply.” He did not take the name of Donald Trump.
According to Johannes Warwick, Germany’s insistence on international law also led to criticism in the United Nations. Some accuse Germany of double standards: “For example, by sitting so strongly with Israel on the Gaza issue. I think almost everyone in the UN understands that Germany has different historical relations with Israel – there is no question about that.” Warwick is here referring to the Holocaust, the murder of approximately six million Jews during the Nazi era in Germany. “But the fact that someone stands so clearly on the side of the aggressor – as many understand it – while at the same time holding high the banner of international law in Ukraine in a very dogmatic manner, somehow does not make the case,” he explains.
Security Council reform sounds disappointing
German Foreign Minister Wadefull would like to restore the UN’s role in international conflict resolution. In relation to the wars in Ukraine and Iran, he has called on the United Nations to “be the pivot of current crisis diplomacy”.
In both wars and many other conflicts, the UN has been inactive, and this is largely due to the fact that at least one party involved in these conflicts has veto power in the Security Council: Russia in the war in Ukraine and the US in the war in Iran. He has blocked resolutions directed against him, effectively paralyzing the Council itself.
Wadeful sees this as evidence that the Security Council should be reformed – something that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is also pushing for. He argues that the current structure of the Council, particularly the veto-power members, still resembles the global political landscape immediately after World War II and does not reflect today’s world.
For years now, Germany, Japan, Brazil and India have each been demanding one permanent seat as well as two additional seats for African states. Additionally, they want to allocate seats to four or five non-permanent members, primarily to give greater importance to under-represented regions such as Africa, Asia and Latin America.
But it never yielded any results. And this seems unlikely to happen in the near future, as the five existing veto powers would have to agree to give up their privileges. Johannes Warwick also says that such reform efforts, no matter how justified, are “doomed to failure”.
Declining influence of the United Nations
However, the question remains to what extent the Security Council and the United Nations as a whole are still relevant. In a report released in late August, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) called for “the almost complete marginalization of institutions such as the United Nations due to a combination of financial, political and geopolitical factors.”
New alternative groupings and power groupings have long emerged, such as the G20, the grouping of the twenty most important industrialized and emerging economies, or BRICS Plus, where major non-Western countries including China, Russia and India have joined. Thus these groups have been able to bypass the United Nations.
This is not in Germany’s interest, Warwick argues in his analysis of the importance of the UN: “Strengthening traditional UN multilateralism must remain the strategic goal of German foreign policy. This is very difficult and difficult, but the world would be no better off if forums such as the G20 or BRICS emerged as successors to this UN multilateralism.”
Austria and Portugal are also strong candidates
Germany has recently served a total of six terms in the Security Council from 2019 to 2020. In its current 2027–2028 bid, Germany faces competition from two other EU countries, Austria and Portugal, which are also strong contenders, especially since Germany’s application was submitted relatively late. To succeed, Germany needs two-thirds of the votes from the 193 member states.
In an interview with DW, Johan Waddefull advised the General Assembly: “One should choose a country that has experience and is interested in developing a greater understanding of other countries and other continents.” Needless to say, he sees Germany as the front runner here. Whether other countries also agree with this approach will be known only on June 3.
This article was translated from German