Germany has been striving to be a permanent member of the UN Security Council throughout 2004, with initial success but still a rough road ahead.

Germany, whose two-year term as non-permanent member of the UN Security Council will expire at the end of this year, signaled early on its readiness to be a candidate for the permanent Security Council membership in the latest round of UN reform.

Addressing the UN General Assembly on Sept. 24, 2003, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said "within the framework of a UN reform, we are ready to undertake more responsibility."

He spoke more directly of Berlin's desire in a speech at the new campus of the German Federal Academy for Security Policy in March, as he noted "Germany sees itself as a candidate for a permanent seat in the Security Council."

Since then, Schroeder and his Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer have not only been verbal on the issue, but also actively lobbied for international support when they zigzagged around the world. Germany has formed an alliance with Japan, India and Brazil in seeking the permanent membership in the Security Council.

For quite a long time, the Schroeder government has been giving preference to a joint EU permanent membership in the UN Security Council, in contrast to former German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel who sought actively for a German permanent seat.

But now, the Schroeder government regards the chance for a EU membership as "just zero," said Ludger Volmer, a Green politician and former deputy to Fischer, referring to the inability of EU members to agree on foreign issues such as Iraq.

For the coalition government of the Social Democrats and Greens, "a German seat is the second best solution, but still a good solution," Volmer said.

But the real trigger for Germany and others to push for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council was the appointment of a high-level panel last year by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to consider sweeping reforms at the UN, including that of the Security Council.

For Berlin, the reform does not only provide a real opportunity to secure a permanent seat, but also a best position currently to grasp.

As the UN's second largest contributor of peace-keeping forces and third largest financial payer, Germany has played an increasingly important role in UN affairs.

Echart Lohse, a columnist of the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung, wrote that nearly all German foreign policy-makers believed that "since its reunification, Germany has undertaken so much international responsibility that it has to co-decide" on Security Council resolutions concerning peace and development.

With its thorough denunciation of atrocities committed in the Nazi era, its call for multi-lateralism and its standing-up against Washington's military aggression against Iraq, Germany has also won broad support for its aspiration from the international community, including nearly all permanent members of the Security Council.

Earlier this month, the Annan-appointed panel revealed its two models for reforming the Security Council. One calls for increasing the current number of permanent members from five to 11and the non-permanent members from 10 to 13, while the other will create a layer of non-permanent members with a four-year re-renewable term.

German media believe that the proposals, if implemented, will enhance Germany's standing in the Security Council one way or the other as Germany has fulfilled the requirements for being the new permanent or the semi-permanent four-year member.

But Berlin still aims high. Schroeder said recently that new permanent members should be entitled to veto rights as the old, although aides later called his remarks as "starting point for negotiations."

However, Germany still faces many obstacles on the way of being a permanent member of Security Council. Its ambition is openly or covertly opposed by Italy, Spain and Poland, which also ask for more prominence in the Security Council.

Some countries also have serious reservations toward Japan and other self-declared candidates for permanent membership, which will make the Security Council reform all the more complicated.

The last obstacle may come from the United States, which unlike other permanent members, has been silent on whether Germany should join their ranks, obviously out of anger at Berlin's opposition to its Iraqi policy, German media analysts said.

Berlin does not expect that Washington will stand on its way when a vote finally come at the UN General Assembly on any changes to the UN Charter to accommodate the reform of the Security Council.

But it is the US Senate, which like other national parliaments must approve the changes, that might block Berlin's chance as American lawmakers oppose any attempt to dilute the influence of the United States in the UN, observed the German newspaper Die Welt.

"Here (in the US Senate), not with the grumbling Italians, the German dream of being a world power could finally be shelved," DieWelt said.

Annan is expected to put forward his own proposals on UN reforms based on recommendations from the high-level panel next March, to be followed by a debate, which could last months, if not years, among the UN members.

Whether Berlin can reach its objectives will remain to be seen, the German media said.
 
(Xinhua News Agency December 18, 2004)