Who will be the next Secretary General of the United Nations?

00:00:01: Welcome to the podcast of The Austrian Institute

00:00:20: for International Affairs.

00:00:29: Today, this organization faces several problems.

00:00:33: But before we're going into more details and why it's important to talk about the United Nations right now let us ask my colleague in research at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs Loïc Simonnet what is actually the UN?

00:00:52: And why is it at the crossroads into a twenty, twenty six.

00:00:59: Yeah thank you very much.

00:01:00: pleasure to be here Tengiz.

00:01:02: yes so do you do.

00:01:03: the UN is currently comprising one hundred ninety three member states truly universal serving as forum for diplomacy to solve global problems and that can go from climate change to fighting poverty and so on.

00:01:22: So a huge system which has become quite gigantic, out of control.

00:01:33: it contains more than one hundred forty entities that have passed four forty thousand resolution statements since its inception in nineteen forty five.

00:01:46: The multilateral system with the UN at its center is under unprecedented political and financial pressure from deepening liquidity crisis to fundamental principles of the UN charter being put into question.

00:02:09: from Portugal has issued severe warnings that the UN faces a race to bankruptcy and imminent financial collapse due early, the organization is grappling with a severe crisis and warnings that it could go out of cash by July.

00:02:41: And yeah, no need to underline that the US position since Donald Trump inauguration last year counts for a lot in this crisis.

00:02:55: Since the U S has decided to cut any financial support through the UN system.

00:03:04: Yeah, so I would say that twenty-six is a crucial crossroad year for the UN system.

00:03:11: And on top of this organization we'll be electing a new secretary general.

00:03:18: Could you quickly explain what role the Secretary General plays in this organisation and What makes his mandate particularly difficult to fulfill?

00:03:29: Yes The role of VSG in the UN system is quite complicated and difficult to understand.

00:03:42: Since the appointment for the first Secretary General, a debate has been ongoing over the nature.

00:03:58: a non-political role or is it more general, meaning more political role?

00:04:05: In many ways.

00:04:06: It's both DSG oversees the functioning of staff and office reports to UN General Assembly but he has also a political role.

00:04:17: He has rights to bring peace security issues before Security Council meetings.

00:04:27: The UNSG can activate Article Ninety-Nine of the UN Charter to bring to the attention Of the UN Security Council any matter which, in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.

00:04:43: And by the way Antonio Guterres has invoked article ninety nine In two thousand twenty three when he warned a UN Security council for looming global threat from the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, so in short I would say it's all in the execution.

00:05:06: And likely had the consequence of enhancing the prestige of the Secretary General, enabling him because it has always been men.

00:05:21: And we can come back to this question is he at that time for female secretary general?

00:05:27: So in enabling DSG take a more active and public role on the international stage.

00:05:36: so you see between the administrative role and political role of ESG, that's fascinating to observe.

00:05:45: The personalities have a very different profile in their roles.

00:05:48: let me think for example about Boutros.

00:05:50: Boutrossralli former Egyptian foreign minister who tried give you know position more political role but at end of day he faced US objection was prevented from serving for a second mandate, because the US found him too political to isolate in the position.

00:06:17: And they facedly in my opinion but they accused him of being responsible.

00:06:24: and you know all the Yugoslavia, all the crisis of the beginning of the nineties.

00:06:29: It was also a difficult time but it was also in difficult times.

00:06:32: um The term of Guterres I mean several wars broke out.

00:06:37: What's the balance of two Guterresh terms?

00:06:41: In your view how would you see his term as secretary general?

00:06:50: I would say that yeah, Gutierrez has been trying to make a virtue of necessity by losing this funding crisis.

00:07:00: And i alluded too to review the UN bureaucracy.

00:07:05: you know try.

00:07:06: in last year he launched his ambitious UN at AT initiative aiming at streamlining the functioning all the resolutions adopted until the UN creation and trying to save positions, trying to Save money.

00:07:27: But I'm not sure that it will be enough to save the organization from this kind of disdain for multilateralism and multilateralist crisis.

00:07:44: So next secretary general would not only with navigating these challenges, but also with advancing essential reforms to ensure the UN is fit for purpose.

00:07:59: Before

00:07:59: we go into the candidates' next term of Secretary General... Last word maybe on Guterres?

00:08:12: Was he a political or more administrative figure in hindsight?

00:08:19: Once again, I think it was both.

00:08:21: He was definitely an administrative figure but he also tried to keep the profile of the UN at highest level through this many crises that they faced in past few years from COVID pandemic to the crisis in the Middle East, The Ukraine war which has been a severe blow to UN.

00:08:49: And I think Guterres made its best try and keep the UN profile.

00:08:58: So Guterre is European?

00:09:01: We know that there's this principle of geographic rotation.

00:09:05: so what... Global region is next to nominate the Secretary General.

00:09:15: Yes,

00:09:16: there's this tradition of a geographical rotation at UN for the job position and let me recall that Gutierrez predecessor has been one Korean, Ban Ki-moon.

00:09:33: Then before Ban Ki Moon it was Kofi Annan from Ghana.

00:09:39: so you see what should come next maybe?

00:09:42: Let me recall the ideal profile for the job.

00:09:45: first a candidate what is now called a middle power, so we are the Swedish.

00:09:52: We have Norwegian and Korean and Argentinian and Egyptian as I said... So it's

00:09:57: never from one of the superpowers?

00:10:02: Exactly!

00:10:03: There was a gentleman agreement that no non-of the five permanent members of the Security Council would appoint candidates, so you could never have a candidate from France or from China.

00:10:19: You

00:10:19: even had Secretary General with an Austrian background?

00:10:23: Yes, absolutely!

00:10:26: And we can refer to Austria in a second because what will happen at the UN and at the Security Council has consequences for Austria to controversial position on the international stage, but nevertheless a country playing a role.

00:10:51: And it needs to be a candidate which is P-Five compatible meaning acceptable by five permanent members of the Security Council since according to procedure The Security Council makes recommendation and then the UN General Assembly votes to elect the secretary general.

00:11:15: So we have this year, four candidates and interestingly so three of on The Four Candidates come from Latin America because if you think about Gutierrez and the predecessors it should be the turn of a Latina.

00:11:34: Is there

00:11:35: any distinction between Latin America in North America or is it the Americas?

00:11:41: There is no formal distinction but since North America has made essentially of the US and Canada, Mexico could definitely hear.

00:11:53: three interesting Latin American profile.

00:11:56: We have Michelle Bachelet from Chile,

00:11:58: former president

00:12:00: exactly.

00:12:01: she made two terms actually and that's important.

00:12:04: it is even more important.

00:12:06: She was the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights From a strong human rights defender.

00:12:18: Strong profile

00:12:20: Someone who also knows the organization?

00:12:23: Yes, but she's not the only one.

00:12:24: The second candidate from Argentina is Rafael Grossi ,the current director of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA .The third Latin American candidate and this one actually my favorite is Rebecca Greenspan from Costa Rica And she has a strong UN footprint, also field experience of the UN.

00:12:56: The last one... Why

00:12:58: is she your favorite?

00:13:00: I would say because actually two of them mainly have serious obstacles you know on their way in my opinion, to the position.

00:13:14: Maybe I can explain why right now.

00:13:17: so Michel Bachelet when sorry

00:13:19: mentioned first the fourth one who is exactly yeah?

00:13:22: Exactly!

00:13:22: The forth one is a non-Latin American.

00:13:25: it's actually Mackie Sal the former Senegalese president, so from Africa which is paradoxical because it breaks somehow this tradition of having a geographical rotation.

00:13:37: But we're in times where many rules are broken?

00:13:40: So if you could be surprised...

00:13:43: I'm not sure.

00:13:45: actually Makisal maybe we can begin with him.

00:13:47: Makisale doesn't have to support off-the-African Union was endorsed last month by the presidency of the African Union, Burundi.

00:14:03: But you feel that there is still much tension among the African countries.

00:14:10: and just to give an example Nigeria one of biggest geographical and economical power in Western Africa sent a letter to the African Union, saying that Africa should not present a candidate and should respect this long-standing tradition.

00:14:32: And leave away to Latin

00:14:34: America.".

00:14:34: So you see that Mackie Sahl's chances in my opinion are low but we still can have surprises about his chances I think.

00:14:48: When she was, so I told you that the candidate should be P-Five compatible.

00:14:55: And Bachelet has a major problem.

00:14:59: when she was UN High Commissioner for Human Rights She had to deal with the Uighur file You know this minority Muslim minority in North Western China And she did it in a kind of offensive way, and she faced at the time much criticism from China.

00:15:24: Who knows?

00:15:24: I'm afraid that Beijing might remind this episode... Plus you know that Michel Bachelet has been strong human rights advocate, human right defender.

00:15:38: She must be perceived by Trump administration as possibly To the left is exactly for the term.

00:15:47: So I'm afraid that... And the

00:15:49: other two, whether they are...

00:15:51: The other two.

00:15:52: so Raphael Grossi might certainly be a good candidate.

00:15:56: you know having.

00:15:57: he might be seen as too bureaucratic and not charismatic enough to have the position and strangely enough his currently facing criticism because he refused to resign, not to resign but put himself on leave during the campaign.

00:16:18: There is also a tradition that candidates should quit his or her positions at the UN and kind of during the campaign, during the election campaign.

00:16:30: And he

00:16:31: did not do so probably because they felt that in the current context...and I would say that's a positive quality.

00:16:40: He might have thought it should stay on board.

00:16:45: we see nuclear narratives coming back from Russia or others perceive that he should stay on board,

00:16:55: but

00:16:58: paradoxically it has turned into a criticism against Raphael Rossi.

00:17:04: But he certainly has chances

00:17:07: and

00:17:08: Rebecca Greenspan in my opinion are serious chances.

00:17:12: first of all she's a lady And I think the time has come for a female secretary general of the UN.

00:17:23: She comes from a country which is compatible, I would say Costa Rica kind low profile but at the same time very active on climate change, environmental issues and so on.

00:17:41: And she has had a chance to listen to her statement last week in the UN when she presented her priorities positions and I was struck by the very moderate balance way that she wants to come back article one of the charter and I think that's very clever because the UN wants to kind of restrict the UN format, bring them back to basics.

00:18:15: And i think it would align well with she could be a US...

00:18:24: decision, when will the decision be made?

00:18:28: Sorry.

00:18:29: So the decision we've been made most probably at UN General Assembly in September.

00:18:36: Antonio Gutierrez's second mandate is coming to an end by the end of this year so the tenth Secretary-General will start next year but I would say that the decision will be announced at UN General Assembly.

00:18:52: You know, this big gathering of all the member states in New York... Exactly!

00:18:58: This

00:19:00: year is also important for the composition of the Security Council.

00:19:06: First of all if you could quickly explain what the role of the security council is and why these elections are important

00:19:14: The UN Security Council need less to recall the center of maintenance, peace and security in the world.

00:19:27: It's the, yeah.

00:19:28: The leading center of UN meeting.

00:19:32: contrary to the UN General Assembly which is meeting only once per year in New York City... ...the UN Security Council can meet any time if there is a need to meet and we know this balance between five permanent members and ten non-permanent...

00:19:52: Which are United States UK France?

00:19:56: China and the Russian Federation.

00:19:58: Yes,

00:19:59: yes with this ongoing debate about reform of UN Security Council which still

00:20:05: reflects power.

00:20:10: You mentioned that the UN was created at the end of the Second World War, and the balance of power within the UN Security Council still reflects very much this balance.

00:20:22: And

00:20:22: on top it's quite paralysed currently right?

00:20:25: Exactly!

00:20:25: It has always been I would say paralysing.

00:20:27: during all Cold War.

00:20:31: there is a. There was a small, short window of opportunity after the fall of Soviet Union.

00:20:41: But very quickly with Yugoslavian wars and the crisis in Somalia... And many others we saw UN Security Council again paralysed by the growing rift between East and West.

00:21:00: So now the non-permanent members are open for election, right?

00:21:07: Or at least some of them.

00:21:08: And why are these elections important in your view?

00:21:13: They're very important to Austria our host country because Austria made a bit you know become one of this ten non permanent members last and minister minorizing came to New York, to present you know Austria's priorities and the importance of... Austria faces serious competitors if I remember well Germany and Georgia mainly.

00:21:42: So uh The decision will be soon announced at the beginning of June on the third of June If i remember well And this decision definitely orient the Austrian foreign policy during the two coming years, you know they're doing twenty seven and twenty eight since it's a two-year mandate.

00:22:08: And

00:22:08: Austria tries to get the votes of African countries which has already led or has triggered several policies, if you like.

00:22:21: There is an Africa strategy that is now developed and there's a bigger focus of Austrian foreign policy towards Africa.

00:22:28: so the candidacy alone already brings some political repercussions.

00:22:35: Do how do you see Austria's chances?

00:22:38: It's very difficult to say.

00:22:40: Germany is a serious competitor.

00:22:41: now, I would say that the current chairperson of UN General Assembly already

00:22:50: is

00:22:50: an Alena Baerbock.

00:22:52: So time has come for Austria But we never know.

00:22:58: It's a very competitive, very uncertain race and certain competition And some countries I think Canada in the past had disillusioned you know expecting then at end of day being barred by so... We never knew but i would say Austria has many chances to get the position.

00:23:23: I think we'll soon revisit this topic.

00:23:25: Thank you so much.

00:23:27: Thank

00:23:32: You for listening!

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