Leaders of Japan, Germany, Brazil and India — the G4 that wants expansion of the U.N. Security Council and permanent seats for themselves — are exploring the possibility of a summit meeting in New York in the last week of September, on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA).
In 2013 and 2014, G4 Foreign Ministers met on the sidelines of the UNGA and called for urgent reforms, but efforts are on to have a summit this year, according to diplomatic sources. “It is not yet final as it will depend on the convenience of all four,” they said.
The U.N.’s Inter-Governmental Negotiations (IGN) that have been under way since 2008 finalised over the weekend a negotiating text for U.N. reforms, qualitatively changing the nature of the debate, though concrete action on it is unlikely to be immediate. A U.N. resolution on Monday also called for “equitable representation on, and increase in the membership of, the Security Council.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff are going to be in New York in the last week of September. Though scheduling a meeting of all of them together may not be easy, diplomatic sources from a foreign country said, the time would be appropriate for these countries to pull their weight together as it comes closely after the IGN draft. “We are working on it,” they said.
There are many opponents to the expansion of the UNSC, but the most vociferous of them all on Monday were China and Pakistan. The G4 took shape in 2004 when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, along with German Foreign Minister Joska Fischer, issued a joint statement, kicking off their campaign for U.N. reforms, including more representation for developing countries, both in the permanent and non-permanent categories, in the UNSC which has 15 members.
The September 2014 India-U.S. joint statement said the “President reaffirmed his support for a reformed U.N. Security Council with India as a permanent member”, but subsequent suggestions from the U.S. for a “consensus approach,” was seen by India as a reading down of that position. India and other G4 members hope that, with the negotiations now moving to a text-based one, there will be more clarity on the respective positions of countries.