The Federal President receives support from the Greens. Anyone who “doesn’t want to go through the same fiasco” the next time they run for the UN Security Council should take a self-critical look at mistakes and exercise humility.
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier sharply criticized considerations of reducing Germany’s obligations to the United Nations. “A troop withdrawal would be short-sighted and fatal,” Steinmeier told an international conference in Hamburg on Monday.
He addresses this to “all those in my country who, in response to the election defeat, question the usefulness of the United Nations and even call for a reduction in our commitments.” The Federal President received support from the Greens.
Steinmeier called the failure of Germany’s bid for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council a “bitter defeat”. The defeat is “an occasion for critical questions – both for our opponents and for ourselves,” Steinmeier told the Hamburg Conference on Sustainable Development, which sees itself as a platform for development cooperation.
Following the defeat in the Security Council elections, Federal Foreign Minister Johann Wadeful (CDU) said that, as a consequence, Germany could reduce its commitments to the UN. “It cannot be that we are one of the largest donors and are not taken into account when making some decisions, including personnel decisions,” Wadeful told the Rheinische Post two weeks ago. “Germany also wants to be respected,” the minister said. The Bundestag will now “take a closer look at individual commitments” as part of the budget preparations.
Steinmeier stressed in Hamburg that Germany will not abandon badly needed cooperation: “My country will continue to stand for international cooperation, for peace and development – and for an international order whose heart is the United Nations,” he said. The UN’s commitment is “in our own strategic interests.”
Deputy leader of the Greens parliamentary group Agnieszka Brügger welcomed Steinmeier’s comments. Anyone who “doesn’t want to go through the same fiasco” next time they run for the UN Security Council should take a self-critical look at mistakes and show humility, Brugger told AFP news agency. “And if you want to take on more responsibility, you have to be more committed.” Germany should not reduce its commitments, but should be a “driver” of reforms in the United Nations.
Steinmeier criticizes “geopolitical upheavals” and “power interests”
In his speech, Steinmeier pointed to the “geopolitical upheavals” that are making global politics more dangerous. “The zeitgeist of cruelty and ruthlessness permeates international politics,” he said. “We live in a time when the international rules that have guided us for decades are under threat, when some powerful states no longer recognize those rules and openly violate them when they stand in the way of their own power interests.”
Steinmeier also made a request to the UN. “The United Nations must change, it must become more efficient and effective,” he said. “Precisely because the winds of the political zeitgeist are blowing sharply against the United Nations, as contributions and budgets are increasingly called into question, everyone who works for and for the United Nations must prove the opposite: prove that the United Nations can do better than powerful men with their fantasies of omnipotence.”
Federal Development Minister Rome Alabali Radovan (SPD) strongly warned against further cuts in development aid. Germany should not risk its influence in the world, she told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. She is “convinced that Germany’s future will also be determined by whether we take our partnership with the global south seriously and expand it.”
Radovan’s ministry faces a fifth consecutive cut in the next federal budget. The goal should be to focus development cooperation more closely, she said, “but we must not retreat now.”
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