From 2019 to 2020 Germany will again have a seat on the UN Security Council. 184 of the 193 UN member states voted in favour of according Germany a seat on the most powerful body of the United Nations in New York.

For peace and security

The UN Security Council is the only body of the United Nations that can pass legally binding resolutions.

Germany trusts in a comprehensive approach in order to build and keep peace in crisis-affected countries and regions suffering insecurity. More attentions should be paid to human rights violations in the world’s crisis-affected countries. Special protection should be afforded to women and children.

Global health risks should be more effectively stemmed in future, and the global community should respond better to pandemics such as the Ebola crisis. The German government also intends to more strongly support activities for global disarmament and the non-proliferation of weapons.

Germany has played an active role in the United Nations for many years: it is the second largest donor of humanitarian aid, one of the largest donors in the field of official development assistance and the fourth largest contributor to the UN budget. In addition, of the European nations Germany provides the largest contingent of blue helmet troops.

Supporting UN reforms

Germany is working to reform the United Nations. The crises in the world demonstrate that the Security Council must remain able to act. The German government would also like to see European interests represented to a greater extent in the Security Council. Speaking in the German Bundestag, Chancellor Angela Merkel proposed "that we treat our non-permanent seat in future as a European seat". That would enable Europe to act in concert. It could also be helpful for smaller European countries.

With Germany, Belgium stood for one of the two seats designated for Western European and other Western states. South Africa stood for the group of African states and the Dominican Republic for Latin America and the Caribbean. This year, Indonesia and the Maldives stood for the Asian and Pacific region.

In addition to the permanent members (USA, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom) there are a total of ten non-permanent members on the United Nations Security Council. Every year five new members are elected for a period of two years. Five seats are designated for candidates from Africa and Asia, one from Eastern Europe, two from Latin America and the Caribbean and two from Western European or other Western countries.