Brussels, 26/05/2011 (Agence Europe) - The EU is seeking to acquire a permanent seat at the UN Security Council, experts say. After the conference, “A European seat in the UN Security Council”, on 23-24 May in Brussels, they presented their points of view to several members of the European Parliament on Wednesday 25 May. Nicoletta Pirozzi, a research member at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) in Rome, considered that the EU, which already has the means to have a common position on the global stage with the Lisbon Treaty, should soon be able to “speak with one voice” at the Security Council.
On this basis, experts sought “alternative ways” to the usual proposals for increasing the number of states with a permanent seat. This was also the method defended by the “Uniting for Consensus” movement which held a meeting in Rome last week to rekindle its idea of greater regional representation within the Council, especially with a common European seat.
The idea of a security council of the regions is also defended by Henning Melber, Director of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, who considers that, from its creation in 1945, the UN Charter has given a large place to regional structures. He thus believes that reform of the Charter is not essential to give greater visibility and powers to regional organisations.
Nonetheless, although a European seat at the Council is often associated with the idea of more balanced representation of other regions, states such as Germany, while defending a “common European seat”, continue in their efforts to obtain a permanent seat, as Germany's Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle pointed out on Tuesday 24 May. (J.K./transl.jl)