At the meeting of the UN General Assembly on June 11, 2021, Albania is expected to be elected a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for the period 2022-2023. The Eastern European Group of which our country belongs to a country as a non-permanent member of the Security Council. Thanks to the successful multi-year lobbying and intensive campaigning carried out by all structures of the Foreign Service, Albania appears in these elections as a consensual candidate of the Group we belong to, which means we are the only candidate and the choice is safe.
The basic component of Albania's campaign for this task has been the emphasis on the credibility and constructiveness of our country's foreign policy, both bilaterally and multilaterally, including in the framework of UN missions in the service of peace, security and development at regional and global level. Our many years of contributions make Albania deserving of decision-making tasks at the global level.
The election to the Security Council, for the first time in 65 years as a member of the UN, represents a major challenge, but also an excellent opportunity that will probably take decades to repeat.
What does non-permanent member mean?
The Security Council consists of fifteen members, five of whom (United States, France, the United Kingdom, China and Russia) are permanent members of the Council. Permanent members also enjoy the right of veto, which means that they can block any decision that conflicts with those lines of their foreign policy that are considered non-negotiable by these countries.
The other ten are non-permanent members of the Security Council, whose term is two years. To ensure periodic renewal of membership without compromising the continuity and sustainability of the work of this important body, five new non-permanent members are elected each year to replace the previous five who end two years of service on the Council.
In principle, the fifteen members of the Council represent in a balanced way all possible membership of the United Nations, by continents and geostrategic regions. There are a total of five regional groups, including the Eastern Europe Group of 23 members (including Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council). Our group has a non-permanent reserved membership. Albania's mandate as a consensual candidate of this group begins on January 1, 2022, replacing the current representative of the same group, Estonia.
For more information, please visit the webpage: https://punetejashtme.gov.al/en/albania-for-the-security-council-2022-2023