The EU’s Contribution to the Effectiveness of the UN Security Council: Representation, Coordination and Outreach

Abstract:

This paper aims to assess the EU’s contribution to the work of the UN Security Council (UNSC) and outline the prospects for future developments under three main dimensions: representation, coordination and outreach. The first part analyses the EU’s presence in terms of its unitary representation and coordination among the EU members of the UN Security Council, with a particular focus on the innovations introduced by the Lisbon Treaty. The second part is dedicated to the EU’s contribution, in terms of process and outreach, to the main policy areas within the SC’s competence.

These include traditional SC matters, such as peacekeeping and non-proliferation, as well as emerging and still contested competences of the UN’s supreme organ, such as climate change. The paper was prepared for the second meeting of Working Group I on 'The Reform of the UN Security Council: What Role for the EU?', held in Rome on 14 May 2010, in the framework of the IAI-University of Kiel project on 'The European Union and the Reform of the United Nations' (Effective Multilateralism).