Financial Times Deutschland publishes GPPi op-ed on German UN policy

GPPi Associate Director Thorsten Benner has written an op-ed about German UN policy in light of Germany’s assuming a two-year non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council in January 2011. The piece ran on December 21 in the Financial Times Deutschland.

Benner argues that Germany has an opportunity to contribute to a strong Europe in a functioning Security Council. To do so, however, the German government needs to drop its bid for a permanent seat on the Security Council. Benner criticizes Chancellor Angela Merkel for pursuing the opposite strategy by declaring the next two years ​“a good opportunity” for continuing the German push for a permanent seat. He argues that such a push will lead to European disunity. In particular, Italy and Spain – already suspicious of Germany’s foreign policy in the wake of the Euro crisis – would only intensify their lobbying against a permanent German seat. The result could be an intra-European split reminiscent of the in-fighting during the 2003 Iraq debate.

Should Germany decide to drop its bid for permanent seat, it would be free to lobby forcefully for a joint EU seat on the Security Council (and increase the pressure on the UK and France to consider moving in this direction). As an interim step, this would also include supporting the Portuguese proposal to include members of the new EU diplomatic service in the respective Security Council delegations.