Romania’s Security Council candidacy

In 2016 Romania submitted its candidacy for non-permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council for 2020-2021, on the slot earmarked for the East-European Group, of which it is a part

Corina Cristea, 21.12.2018, 14:24

Since it joined
the UN in 1955, Romania has held 4 non-permanent member seats in the Security
Council, in 1962, 1976-1977, 1990-1991 and in 2004-2005 respectively. The
current campaign for a new seat in the Council is held under the motto
Romania: Long-Term Commitment to Peace, Justice and Development. Here is what
Ambassador Ion Jinga, Romania’s permanent representative to the UN, has told
Radio Romania:

Ion Jinga: We have been in the
Security Council before, 4 times. We have also been on the Economic and Social
Council, 8 times. At present Romania is a member of the ECOSOC, the Economic
and Social Council, in the 2017-2018 term. We were twice members of the Human
Rights Council. We have presided a number of UN commissions and committees,
some of them of great importance. So Romania is a player in this game,
obviously not one of the big players, but a medium one. But I dare say that
thanks to the strength, skill and intelligence of the Romanian diplomacy, we
managed, many times during this period in which we have been active in the
multilateral international arena, to go beyond the status given by a country’s
mere geographic size or economic power, and we did this through the strength of
our ideas and through our projects. It all comes down to the country’s human
contribution.

The elections
for the forthcoming term will take place during the June 2019 UN General
Assembly meeting, and in accordance to the provisions of the UN Charter, in
order to obtain a seat a country needs the votes of 2/3 of the UN member
countries during the General Assembly. The UN currently has 193 members, and
the candidates for this particular seat are Romania and Estonia. On what
countries can Bucharest rely, for support?

Ion Jinga: A country needs two-thirds
of the UN member states, which arithmetically translates into at least 129
countries. Well, in order to get the vote of 129 countries or more, we need
strong arguments and persuasion power, because to a certain extent votes are
based on mutual arrangements, but also they are largely based on what a country
is capable of doing, on what it undertakes to do and on its past
accomplishments, on proving that on previous occasions that country did what it
had promised to do. As a detail, this is a secret ballot. And in secret voting,
to quote a distinguished ambassador of a major country which is a permanent
member of the Security Council, ‘my vote is known only to myself and God’. So
it takes a lot of persuasion power to make sure that those ambassadors casting
a secret ballot will actually vote for your country, beyond any arrangements
one might make.

As of January 1,
2019, Romania will hold the presidency of the EU Council for 6 months. How
could this influence Bucharest’s bid for a non-permanent seat in the UN
Security Council?

Ion Jinga: I believe Romania’s
presidency of the EU Council may play a positive role in our campaign for the
Security Council. I have no doubts that it will be a successful presidency. The
president of Romania Klaus Iohannis mentioned in 2017 and in 2018, at the UN
General Assembly, that Romania will seek a place in the Security Council. It is
a message of political support at the highest level, which basically gives
legitimacy to any effort that we are making to promote this candidacy. In turn,
the Foreign Minister, Mr Melescanu, had around 40 bilateral meetings in
September, focusing on the efforts to promote this candidacy. We are trying to
capitalise on a certain tradition in certain areas. For instance, at present we
are chairing the Peacebuilding Commission. It is the first time that Romania is
a member of this commission, and its chair. As the head of this commission, I
have travelled to Africa twice, jointly with a UN team, we have visited 5-6
countries there. A number of meetings are held in those countries. For
instance, Romania managed to introduce in the agenda of the Peacebuilding
Commission, through a joint meeting with ECOSOC – the Economic and Social
Council, a debate on the ties between the consequences of climate factors and
security risks. This topic has never been on the agenda of this commission, but
it is a major topic, and for some countries even a critical one.

As Ambassador
Jinga put it, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose in this field, but the
important thing is to do your job well, to believe in what you do and to
believe that what you do serves your country. If Romania wins this seat, it is
Romania as a whole that stands to gain, and the echoes of this accomplishment,
of a new Security Council member seat, will certainly span a decade.