João Vale de Almeida, who was the EU’s ambassador to the United Nations, and has now published The Divorce of Nations, responded to a question about whether there is still room for multilateralism, a long argument: “My favorite phrase in relation to the United Nations today is to say that we should not throw out the baby with the bathwater. And the bathwater is a fundamental crisis. The United Nations, in some recent moments, has been very close to irrelevance, but if we throw out the baby with the bathwater, what are we left with? Are we capable of recreating, of remaking the United Nations? I don’t think so. In other words, before we throw out the baby, let’s try to improve things, but let’s try to preserve the baby so that it can grow when conditions are more favorable. permanent are the cause of the United Nations crisis, such as Russia, when it clearly violates the United Nations Charter in a systematic way in recent years, or China boycotting some lines of action, or the United States operating outside the Charter, it is clear that the P5 does not work, and if the P5 does not work, the Security Council does not work. And if the Security Council does not work, the United Nations does not work, starting with the secretary general. doesn’t he do it anymore?’ The secretary general has the power that the Security Council gives him, and that the General Assembly gives him, but above all the Council. So we can’t ask the general secretary to make omelettes without eggs. And, in fact, the Security Council is not giving that mandate, of course, and that support and that solidity that the secretary-general needs.”
Vale de Almeida is Portuguese. He was a senior European Union official, chief of staff to Durão Barroso when he presided over the European Commission, and also served as EU ambassador to the United States and the United Kingdom. Being a Portuguese person, and with all this diplomatic experience, defending the UN is very relevant, because it shows how important for a country like Portugal, and for most countries in the world, is an international organization, with rules, a stage where everyone can talk to everyone. In reality, even the great powers have an interest in the UN existing, or were it not for the special status they have in the system, the famous veto right of the P5, the five permanent members of the Security Council, that is, the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France. Even the other great powers, excluded in 1945 from this restricted club for various historical reasons, have the ambition of one day having a permanent seat on the Security Council, and I am talking above all about India and Brazil, also Japan and Germany, but not only that.
In the case of Portugal, which only joined in 1955, during the Cold War (as part of a package of countries negotiated by the United States and the Soviet Union and which included, among others, Spain and Italy, and also Romania and Bulgaria), commitment to building multilateralism has been the rule, particularly since the arrival of democracy in 1974, and the decolonization that followed, put an end to the difficult times of isolation in the General Assembly. Since then, the country has managed to be elected as a non-permanent member three times, and is now a candidate for a new term, for the 2027-2028 biennium, with an official website that very well explains the national commitment to multilateralism, under the motto “Prevention, Partnership, Protection”.
Portugal’s success at the UN, visible not only in the victories in the race for the Security Council, but also in the election with great merit of António Guterres as secretary-general, is the deserved return of involvement in what is important in multilateralism, such as participation in peace operations. It is also the recognition of the role of bridge builder that Portugal insists on playing, through very high quality diplomacy, countering the tendency for the world to fragment into blocs, the so-called “divorce of nations” that João Vale de Almeida talks about.
And the most commendable thing is that the country commits itself to multilateralism without giving up the values of democratic Portugal, Europeanist Portugal, Atlanticist Portugal, Portugal open to other continents thanks to its History and the ties that Lusophony offers us today.
This Wednesday afternoon, at the headquarters of the Institute of National Defense, in Lisbon, the conference Portugal, 70 years at the UN (1955-2025) will be held, an excellent opportunity not only to debate what Portuguese participation in the United Nations has been like since 1955, but above all what the contribution of a country like ours can be to safeguarding an organization that, even if we criticize the Byzantine discussions in the Security Council, and the abuse of the veto, has all the other decisive action that ranges from the courageous vaccination of the WHO in inhospitable and dangerous terrains to the relief role with refugees of that UNHCR that Guterres led before being chosen as secretary general in 2017.
Deputy Director of Diário de Notícias