The UN Security Council has 15 members: five permanent (China, Russia, the United States, France, and the United Kingdom) and 10 elected for staggered two-year terms, with seats allocated for different world regions.
In secret ballots cast by the General Assembly for the European seats, Portugal and Austria received 134 and 131 votes respectively, while Germany received 104.
Germany’s leading role in rallying support for Ukraine and its close relations with Israel may have cost Berlin the the Security Council seat, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said on Wednesday.
“We have always taken a clear stance on certain issues, and these are positions that not all member states share,” Wadephul told reporters, calling it “no secret” that Russia had stirred up sentiment against Germany.
“There is our firm support for Ukraine; the fact that Russia does not want such a voice at the Security Council,” he said.
“The fact that Germany must always assume a special responsibility for Israel in the Middle East conflict may also have cost votes,” he said, referring to Germany’s support for Israel following the Nazi Holocaust of World War Two.
Germany has repeatedly found itself under pressure to take a tougher stance against Israel over the war in Gaza.
Wadephul said Germany would stand by this responsibility even if it does voice criticism of the Israeli government on certain points.
In a separate statement, Merz said Germany would remain a firm supporter of the international system and he offered congratulations to Austria and Portugal.
“We applied with conviction. We did not achieve our goal,” he said. “This result does not alter the tasks we face at the United Nations. Germany remains a reliable pillar of the multilateral system.”
While Merz’s government has struggled domestically with a difficult package of economic and spending reforms that have strained his coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats, he has earned more respect on the foreign policy front, where he has rallied Western support for Ukraine.
However, the opposition Greens said the “embarrassing defeat” was down to Merz and Wadephul, who was in New York for the vote.
“Last year, the German government did far too little to underpin this bid with modern ideas,” Agnieszka Brugger, the party’s deputy parliamentary leader, said in a statement.
The far-right Alternative for Germany, which has regularly criticised Berlin’s support for Ukraine and its efforts to isolate Russia, said the result was no accident. Rather it was “the result of years of ideologically blinkered, unrealistic foreign policy which isolates Germany internationally,” AfD parliamentarian Markus Frohnmaier said in a statement. (Agencies)
