Portugal’s candidacy to the UN Security Council generates “very positive expectation”
Speaking to the Lusa agency and to Antena 1, in New York, the minister João Gomes Cravinho said that he had “contacts with countries around the world” on the sidelines of the 77th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN).
Only on Monday from Ghana and will meet with his colleagues from The Gambia, St. Vincent Gran Egypt and the Central African Republic, among other countries, and bilateral meetings throughout the week.
According to João Gomes Cravinho, “there is a very positive expectation” regarding the candidacy for a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in the biennium 2027-2028.
“What can be thought of as a builder of reflections is that there is a very positive bridge to today, because a country knows how to dialogue with other parts of the world, a country that knows about other parts of the world”, I reinforce.
The minister stressed, on the other hand, that this week of the UN General Assembly “is an opportunity to contact countries with very different experiences” and to “understand what they are for these very different countries, from different parts of the world, the different major international problems they face”.
João Gomesv as an example the invasion of Ukraine by Russia as an example the war by the Federation of Economic Parties, a global war, but “it is not in other matters the most important issue for the countries of the Federation of the Parties of the world”.
“A very important part of the dialogue with these countries is looking to identify ways to develop a common approach,” he added.
The Security Council, created to maintain international peace and security in accordance with the principles of the United Nations, is a body with five permanent members, with the right of veto: the United States, the Russian Federation, France, the United Kingdom and the People’s Republic of China.
Every year, the General Assembly elects five out of a total of non-permanent members, ten who, in terms of a UN resolution, are distributed as follows: five Africans and Asians, one from Eastern Europe, two from Latin America, two from Western Europe and other states.
Portugal was a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in 1979-1980, 1997-1998 and 2011-2012.
Germany and Austria are also candidates to join the Security Council in 2027-2028. As for the places occupied in that biennium, it will be held in 2026.
In January 2013, the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paulo Portas, announced that Portugal would present a new candidacy to the Security Council for a term in 2027-2028 and asked Portuguese diplomats to start working towards this objective right away.
“For those who are chosen in Lisbon who work very early, he said that it is still very long, remember that we were chosen in Lisbon who think that working very early”, he said in the city of Lisbon that it is still very long, which is important- , at a diplomatic seminar.
In September last year, the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, asked for the confidence of the Member States of the United Nations General Assembly for a mandate by Portugal in the Security Council in 2027-2028.
“We have not changed our principles. And we will also maintain the same rumor, in case they give us the confidence for a mandate in the Security Council, five years from now”, said Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, at the 76th session of the UN General Assembly. , in New York.