Germany/Permanent Representative to the UN

Germany/Permanent Representative to the UN
Germany's Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations

The role of the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Germany to the United Nations is as the leader of the German delegation to the United Nations in New York City and as head of the Permanent Mission of the Federal Republic of Germany to the UN. The position has the rank and status of an Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and is also the representative of Germany in the United Nations Security Council.

The Permanent Representative is charged with representing Germany, both through its non-permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council and also during plenary meetings of the General Assembly, except in the rare situation in which a more senior officer (such as the Minister for Foreign Affairs or the President) is present.

History of representatives

The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) was admitted to the UN as an observer in 1955. The German Democratic Republic (East Germany) was admitted as an observer in 1972. On 18 September 1973 both were admitted as full members by the United Nations General Assembly, following the recommendation of the Security Council by Resolution 335 on 22 June 1973. Through the accession of the German Democratic Republic to the Federal Republic of Germany, the closing of the East German seat was effective on 3 October 1990.

Financial contribution

In the 2016/17 two-year budget of just under 5.4 billion US dollars, Germany contributes 6.4 percent with around 158.5 million US dollars per year. This makes Germany the fourth largest contributor to the regular budget, after the USA (22 percent), Japan (9.7 percent) and China (7.9 percent). The 28 member states of the EU contribute around 31 percent of the United Nations budget. In addition, with around 528 million US dollars, Germany also contributes 6.4 percent of the total of around 8.3 billion US dollars in the peacekeeping budget. This makes Germany the fourth largest contributor to this household after the USA (28.6 percent), China (10.3 percent) and Japan (9.7 percent).

Aiming for Permanent Seat

Since the mid-1990s, it has been a goal of German foreign policy to obtain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. At the end of the 1990s, this goal took a back seat in favor of a common seat for the European Union. However, it quickly became clear that France and theUK would not be ready to give up their autonomous seat on the Security Council. Since the beginning of the 2000s, German foreign policy again concentrated on a German seat.

The goal became more distant when Germany turned against the USA in the discussion about the Iraq war. Since the USA, as a permanent member, has to agree to an amendment to the United Nations Charter in order for it to come into force, a corresponding amendment was postponed indefinitely. This was justified by anonymous American diplomats with the fact that Germany's term of office as a non-permanent member in 2003/2004 was "problematic".

The proponents of a reform of the Security Council, however, speculated that a possibly politically overwhelming vote of the UN General Assembly and associated with further reforms that the USA had called for, the latter would hardly be able to oppose it on their own. It was therefore necessary to put together a whole reform package aimed at gaining the broadest possible support among the UN members as a whole.

Germany's choice to contribute to the tensing of the situation with two other permanent members, Russia and China, in addition to the relative economic decline of Europe, has made the goal even more unrealistic.

UN enemy states clause

At the San Francisco Conference in 1945, Articles 53 and 107 of the United Nations Charter defined that against enemy states (i.e. states that were enemies of one of the signatories to the Charter during the Second World War), members could also initiate measures outside the UN security system. According to the wording of the clause, Germany and Japan could still be attacked today without a UN resolution. However, the enemy state clause was officially declared obsolete by the UN in 1995.

 

Office Holders on Wikispooks

Name	From	To
Peter Wittig	2009	2014
Gunter Pleuger	11 November 2002	2006
Felix von Eckardt	1955	1956

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