In the annals of mind-bendingly obfuscatory teaser lines, the following from the New York Times surely must be given pride of place: “Germany may have secured one of the new nonpermanent seats on the U.N. Security Council, but with the rise of China, Europe’s influence is waning.” The teaser leads to the equally obfuscatory article available here and it indeed nicely captures the article’s tenor.
Never mind the Times’s typical conflation of Europe and Germany – as if it goes without saying that Germany’s interests are identical with that of all Europeans. What really happened on Tuesday, when both Germany and Portugal were elected to the Security Council, is that Europe’s international influence precisely and obviously increased. The election of the two countries means that beginning in January EU member states will hold four of the fifteen seats on the Security Council: including, of course, the permanent seats of France and Great Britain. In the Council’s present composition, EU countries hold three seats. China, with more than twice the population of the EU, will continue, of course, to have only one.
