Germany, 2004

Let me first

of all congratulate you, President Ping, on your

election and wish you every success in your

responsible post, and express my sincere thanks to the

outgoing President for his dedicated work.

I endorse the statement of the Netherlands

European Union presidency.

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the world

is changing at dramatic speed. In just a few decades,

humanity will have reached the 8 billion mark. With

the networking of world trade and with global

communication technologies, we are growing ever closer.

We are going to become increasingly interdependent in

economic, technical and ecological terms.

At the same time, we all face a host of new

challenges and new dangers which threaten us all —

the South and the North, the developing and the

developed world alike.

On the one hand, there are threats to national and

global security such as the proliferation of weapons of

mass destruction, the nuclear threat, the danger posed

by failed States or, as we all painfully remember in this

city, by terrorism, which does not respect humankind

or human dignity.

On the other hand, there are also so-called soft

threats, such as far-reaching environmental and

climatic changes, poverty, major shortfalls in education

and training and the negative aspects of globalization,

refugee flows, and diseases and epidemics such as

HIV/AIDS and malaria. They are a threat to security

and stability and take a heavy toll.

The two — hard and soft threats — are closely

connected. After all, we know that the causes of war

and violence, poverty, need and oppression are

multifaceted and deep-rooted. We also know that crises

are the fruit of poverty and a sense of hopelessness,

and vice-versa. We will have no peace without

development, nor indeed development without peace,

so we have comprehensively to secure peace and

stability — above all through economic and social

development.

The States of the world have to work together to

shape economic, technological and ecological

globalization and rise to the resulting challenges. They

will not be able to do so without close cooperation.

Indeed, that is now beyond the tools of traditional

diplomacy alone. Their ability to secure and stabilize

the international system on their own will in future

prove less and less adequate.

What we need is a far-reaching reform of the

international system and its institutions that takes due

account of these changes. That is a reform we need

urgently, because we have to create an effective

multilateral system which enables us to work together

to prevent crises and, where that does not work, find

long-term solutions.

There have already been promising developments

at the regional level. With their sometimes painful history

very much in mind, the States of Europe have joined

together in the European Union and thus have reached

a new level of multilateralism. This political and

economic community, now embracing 25 States, has

become an anchor of stability for Europe and beyond.

Since its foundation the African Union has been

impressively shouldering its shared responsibility for

preventing humanitarian disasters and resolving major

regional conflicts. This is a courageous and key step

forward. This breakthrough of multilateralism on the

African continent will develop an ever more

pronounced dynamism.

Given global interdependencies and connections,

we need a world organization that has close links to

these regional structures and can thus boost the

efficiency of joint action. The United Nations is the

most important forum for setting global rules. Its might

is the might of the right, as the Secretary-General

highlighted in his impressive speech at the opening of

this General Assembly session. With its legitimacy we

have a unique and universal competence for solving

problems together. Since the breaking of the internal

blockade caused by the cold war, the United Nations

has been playing an increasingly significant role. The

international community is making more and more use

of it as a forum for tackling the major challenges

facing humanity.

For millions of people today the Blue Flag means

quite tangible help, often on essential issues, and hope

for a better future. For this, we are all very much

indebted to the Organization and its staff. They are on

the ground in many crisis regions in Latin America,

Europe, Africa and Asia.

It is becoming ever clearer that different

approaches must be found to prevent or resolve each

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individual crisis. The commitment of the United

Nations in all crisis areas is the proof. In Afghanistan

and in the Balkans, in Haiti and in the Great Lakes

region the United Nations is already making a

considerable contribution. But we must realize that

there will not be fewer conflicts in the future, and the

demands made of the Organization will grow.

Against this backdrop the question arises whether

the structures given to the United Nations at its

foundation almost sixty years ago are still suited to this

mandate, whether its work enjoys the international

acceptance it needs. In particular, the disputes

concerning the Iraq crisis highlighted this problem

once again.

We are convinced there is no alternative to a

world acting multilaterally. To make this multilateral

cooperation sustainable and capable, we need a

courageous and comprehensive reform of the United

Nations that faces up to the challenges we are facing.

It was the Secretary-General himself who took

the initiative, and for this we extend our thanks. To that

end, he appointed a panel of high-level international

experts who are to present him with reform proposals

at the end of the year. We look forward to that report

and the ensuing debate with great interest.

What is at stake is a new, shared understanding of

the Charter system. How can we shape prevention to

make it more effective, and peace-building to make it

more sustainable? How can we further implement the

proposals on the reform of peacekeeping? What exactly

do we understand by the right of self-defence? How do

we define terrorism? The answer to this question in

particular seems clear, yet real agreement would take us,

the international community of States, a step forward.

A number of very concrete proposals on the

reform of the United Nations institutions have already

been presented. Let me therefore outline some thoughts

on this matter.

I want to start with the General Assembly. It is

the central organ of the United Nations, the only one

with universal membership. For this very reason, the

Assembly has to be more than an annual forum where

we just go through the motions. What we need to do

first is focus our topics more carefully. We have to

discuss the truly crucial issues — otherwise, essential

questions will be dealt with in other forums. Secondly,

we need more efficient working methods.

The Economic and Social Council has to finally

become the central organ in the United Nations system

for consultation and decision-making on economic and

social issues. We believe that the Council has at two

levels vast potential that has yet to be fully tapped. On

the one hand, that body maintains a network of

expertise unequalled in the world. We have to make

better and more targeted use of it. On the other hand,

we see the Economic and Social Council as a partner

for the Security Council for peacekeeping, as laid

down in Article 65 of the Charter. When it comes to

fighting the causes of conflicts and to post-crisis

rehabilitation, the Economic and Social Council has an

important role to play that can support Security

Council efforts for conflict prevention and peace-

building. We should grant the Economic and Social

Council more competences in the operative sphere.

After all, the efforts we make in peace missions

will be successful only if the military commitment is

followed by a longer phase of stabilization, and very

often that phase turns out to be the most difficult one.

The Economic and Social Council advisory groups on

post-crisis rehabilitation in Africa are a step in the

right direction. That is what the decisive link between

conflict management and development cooperation

could indeed look like.

Such an all-embracing approach needs

appropriate financial resources. The instrument of

voluntary contributions has proven insufficient in

everyday life, and therefore I propose earmarking a

certain share of the United Nations peacekeeping budget

for post-crisis rehabilitation. This means we could

achieve what we have long been trying, a “prevention

share”, which — let us remember Haiti — could help

us save the costs of conflicts flaring up again.

Many criticize the proliferation of subsidiary and

subordinate organizations of the United Nations. Of

course, a reduction cannot be an end in itself. But we

ought to exercise enough self-criticism to ask ourselves

whether it would not be better to pool competences in

some cases.

However, there are also spheres that need to be

better equipped. I am thinking here, for example, of the

handling of environmental issues in the United Nations

system. We thus support the proposal made by French

President Jacques Chirac last year to upgrade the

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to a

specialized agency with universal membership. That

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could considerably strengthen UNFP’s contribution to

sustainable development.

At the heart of the reform of the United Nations

is the organ shouldering the central responsibility for

international peace: the Security Council. Conflicts are

on the increase. They stretch across all continents, and

they are growing in complexity. In turn, the

responsibility and competences of the Council have

expanded constantly. Crisis prevention will play an

increasingly important role. And for peace-building,

ever more comprehensive strategies, closer cooperation

and additional resources will be needed. This will

mean more and more decisions that entail long-term

obligations, create new international law and make

major inroads into State sovereignty.

If we really want Security Council decisions to be

accepted as legitimate and implemented effectively, we

have to reform the Council. It has to more broadly

represent a world organization that today embraces

more than 191 countries. That is inconceivable without

increasing the number of seats — for permanent and

non-permanent members alike. The reasons behind

such a move speak for themselves.

A Council with more members would enjoy

greater acceptance internationally as a basis for greater

authority. The more balanced and comprehensive

representation of all continents — also among the

permanent members — would lead to a better sense of

ownership of the Security Council for all States.

Similarly, an enlargement would considerably bolster

the motivation of the new Council members to make a

long-term contribution to realizing the goals of the

United Nations.

The enlargement must adequately reflect sea

changes such as decolonization, the end of the cold war

and globalization. The composition of the Council

must ultimately mirror the current geopolitical reality.

That means that all major regions of the South must be

represented by permanent members in the Security

Council. At the same time, account has to be taken of

Members that can and want to make a particularly

meaningful and sustainable contribution to maintaining

world peace and international security and to realizing

the purposes of the Organization. That twofold

approach would increase the Council’s efficiency and

its ability to act and to assert itself.

For 40 years, the composition of the Security

Council has remained unchanged. I believe it is high

time to adapt it to the new global reality. Half-baked or

interim solutions are neither necessary nor helpful.

Like Brazil, India and Japan, Germany too is ready to

take on the responsibility associated with a permanent

seat in the security Council. But it is especially

important to us that the African continent be

represented among the new permanent members.

A second aspect also has to be taken into account

in Security Council reform. All in all, a greater number

of Member States that are engaging themselves in the

work of the United Nations should be able to get more

involved in the work of the Security Council. For that

to happen, additional non-permanent seats also have to

be created. That would mean that the balance between

permanent and non-permanent members could be

retained.

As I said before, United Nations reform will be

the central and defining theme of this General

Assembly session. I thus call upon Member States: let

us use the fifty-ninth session, right up until the next

session in 2005, to launch the overdue reforms and

achieve tangible results. We, the Member States, have

to muster the political insight, the will and the

creativity to adapt the Organization to the global

reality. Germany is ready to make a committed

contribution.