In his address to the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday 21 September, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, announced that he would “soon be taking the initiative to hold an institutional summit between the European Union, African Union, CELAC, ASEAN and the United Nations Secretary-General”.
In his words, “we will reflect on how our organisations can act together to strengthen the multilateral system in the framework of the United Nations and the other international fora”.
Speaking from the rostrum, the President of the European Council called for regional and continental organisations to play a greater role as part of the reform of the United Nations. In his view, these organisations reflect a “new level of legitimacy” in international and multilateral fora, exerting a growing influence on the multilateral stage and making an essential contribution to stability. “Their role in the multilateral system must grow”, explained the President of the European Council.
Mr Michel felt that the United Nations would gain legitimacy and effectiveness if it gave a place to regional organisations. In his view, this would encourage these organisations to cooperate more with each other and in a better way, and their “stabilising influence” would be further boosted within the framework of multilateral cooperation.
Mr Michel also complained about the representativeness of the Security Council, which “does not reflect today's world”, adding that 60 countries had never sat on the Security Council. “ Power and legitimacy go hand in hand. The Security Council's lack of representativeness is undermining its legitimacy”, he explained, arguing that increasing the number of permanent members of the Security Council was “inevitable”.
The President of the European Council also called for a review of the right of veto, explaining that, in its current form, it was open to abuse and rendered the Security Council “powerless”. “We should put a mechanism in place that combines majority decision-making with moderate and flexible use of the veto”, he said.
Recalling that the Charter stipulates that a member of the Security Council must abstain from voting when it is the subject of a vote, Mr Michel called on the other members of the Council to invoke this clause when this could involve Russia.
Read Charles Michel's speech: https://aeur.eu/f/8p3 (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)