Annalena Baerbock says reforming the United Nations Security Council is “long overdue” — but doesn’t expect a breakthrough during her one-year tenure as president of the U.N. General Assembly.
“It won’t happen during my term,” Baerbock, the former German foreign minister, said on POLITICO’s Berlin Playbook Podcast. Progress, she said, must come “in small steps,” through “more transparency” and “requirements to explain vetoes.”
On the 80th birthday of the U.N. Charter, the organization’s foundational treaty, Baerbock strongly defended the U.N.’s relevance despite growing struggles with multilateralism. “Without the United Nations, no country in this world would be safer,” she said.
She stressed that the goal must be “to overcome blockades” and make the organization more efficient — such as by merging agencies, increasing local staffing and using AI.
“There is such financial pressure on this organization that it’s become clear we must ask more urgently what the U.N.’s core areas really are,” Baerbock added.
As for who will succeed Secretary-General António Guterres, Baerbock proposed that a woman lead the U.N. An organization committed to women’s and human rights “has not managed to have a woman at its helm in 80 years,” she noted, which is “no longer appropriate.”
On the role of the U.S. in the organization, Baerbock said she still sees strong and important support for multilateralism despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s forceful America First agenda.
It is crucial, she added, that major powers take responsibility and “do not call the Charter into question.” The U.N. remains “the place where controversies must be addressed” and “solutions developed.”
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