Sánchez and the reform of the UN

Pedro Sánchez, usually better advised on foreign than domestic policy, has joined Joe Biden’s proposal to reform the United Nations system. This Thursday an abyss was reopened between the Security Council and global public opinion. Russia vetoed a resolution against Putin’s war escalation. The UN system, based on checks and balances, is still heir to the post-World War II world. It is organized around a balance between the democratic majority and the use of force. The nuclear weapon turns some states into decisive ones and the rest into their satellites. Today, reality is not like that. States, large or small, seek to generate interdependencies and city networks, for example, have more impact on daily life than military blocs. The UN needs to adapt to globalization. And it will not be able to do it while the veto continues to be the axis of its decision-making. While, in fact, it is more important to have nuclear weapons than to accredit a democratic acquis. Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz wrote a magnificent book entitled ‘The discomfort of globalization’. It made the United States and the European Union ugly that they accepted Russia and China in free trade agreements without demanding that minimum democratic acquis. We are already suffering the consequences with Russia in all their intensity. And President von der Leyen warned in her State of the Union address that we were in similar danger in China. Franco’s Spain it entered the United Nations as a dictatorship, but not in what was then the EU. And it was never a preferred partner in the OECD. Democracy and free markets are two sides of the same coin. The nuclear weapon cannot serve as a safe conduct to enjoy the second without adapting to the first. This UN is increasingly unfriendly to a good part of the population. To please the States is not enough, although real politics obliges to deal with the most unpleasant ones, but they cannot be given the power of veto. Those votes in the Security Council discourage countries without nuclear weapons that are not a democracy. And they discourage those inside Russia or China who are fighting to win it. Sanchez, you are right. In foreign policy he follows good advice.

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