Germany Presses for UN Security Council Reform

Germany hopes to join Brazil and India in pressing for reform of the U.N. Security Council, while all three countries sit on the council in 2011.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Andreas Peschke said that the country believes the current Security Council is outdated. 

[Andreas Peschke, Foreign Ministry Spokesman]: 

“It's high time we had a reform of the Security Council, quite simply because the Security Council does not reflect the world as it is today, but as it was at the end of World War Two."

Since World War Two, the Security Council has had five permanent members – the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China.

The so-called Group of Four, or G4, nations – Japan, Brazil, India and Germany, have been pressing for permanent seats on the council for years.

Peschke said that all barring Japan would occupy rotating seats this year.

Although there has been support from permanent members of the council for certain G4 nations to join, they haven’t reached any collective agreement.