Swiss Review of International and European Law Logo Schulthess juristische Medien AG
 
Logo SZIER Zeitschrift

An EU seat on the UN Security Council? The right moment has yet to come … (Ivan Ingravallo)

The essay addresses the relationship between the EU and the UN, focusing on the EU’s participation in the UN Security Council. This topic is considered under both EU law and UN law, also considering the impact of Brexit, the UK being one of the P5. The author stresses the need to reform the UN and its Security Council 75 years after the entry into force of the UN Charter. As a part of this reform, he also explains why the proposal for an EU seat on the Security Council is inadvisable, not only because of the difficulty of modifying the UN Charter, but also because of the cumbersome intergovernmental procedural mechanism of the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). For the moment, the best way to strengthen EU participation in the Security Council without changing the UN Charter and the EU treaties is to give it observer status in that Council.