Foreign Minister Steinmeier issued the following statement in Berlin today (26 June) to mark the 70th anniversary of the Charter of the United Nations being signed:

“Seventy years after it was founded, the United Nations remains indispensable as the central pillar of our international order. Peace and security cannot be achieved without the United Nations.

What we need today, just the same as back then, a few weeks after the end of the Second World War, is a United Nations that has the greatest possible legitimacy and capability to act at the global level. That is in Germany’s interest and one of the key aims of our foreign policy.

United Nations peace missions are a crucial instrument of stabilisation and peacekeeping. It is among the United Nations’ vital objectives, now more than ever, to protect civilian populations effectively.

Germany remains a reliable partner to the United Nations, and we stand ready to bolster United Nations peace missions. I welcome the calls from the SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany) on that subject; they merit broader debate, and we in the German Government will be taking them up.