Germany

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 17 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 18 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.