Italy, the USA and the reform of the UN Security Council

Abstract

The USA and Italy are two protagonists in the endless debate on the reform of the United Nations (UN) Security Council. The prominent role of the USA, not only a permanent member since the UN foundation, but the one which, in the current international reality, is de facto endowed with more power and influence, is due to the weight that its positions inevitably have, more than to the energy displayed to support them. Italy, a country with a limited, albeit not irrelevant, international role, and a non-permanent member of the Security Council for the biennium 2007–2008, has, on the contrary, played an active role in a vigorous attempt to foster its own proposals and, even more, to counter the reform models which it perceived to be against its fundamental interests. Italy and the USA are driven in this debate by diverging needs, and they pursue different objectives. Their departure points were, in fact, in direct opposition with one another. The USA advocated the attribution of new permanent seats to its biggest allies, Germany and Japan. Italy strongly opposed any concept involving the addition of new permanent seats, especially in favour of Germany, and supported the creation of a new category of non-permanent, but ‘more frequently rotating’ seats, to the benefit of all medium powers, while at the same time subscribing to the idea of providing a seat for the European Union (EU). The international situation, however, has evolved, and this paper will try to demonstrate that, while not abandoning their basic premises, the two countries have shortened their distances, meeting in a middle ground, as they happen to fight against the same ‘enemies’. In other words, the efforts of both seem to be focused on avoiding a bad reform more than on promoting the preferred model of each: and a bad reform for both is, for different reasons, the one which has gained the strongest support on the international scene.