Reinhold Brender / May 2026
Photo: European Union, 2026
During the interactive dialogues with the four candidates for the position of UN Secretary-General – Michelle Bachelet, Rafael Grossi, Rebeca Grynspan, and Macky Sall – on 21 and 22 April 2026 at UN Headquarters in New York, the European Union spoke four times. The dialogues were open to questions from UN member states and civil society organisations. Any late entrant in this cycle will have a separate dialogue. The EU's consolidated intervention text, agreed by all 27 member states, was published by the EU Delegation in New York. It recalled the EU's financial weight as the leading supporter of the UN system and stressed that the next Secretary-General must "match principle with action" and defend all three UN pillars – peace and security, development, and human rights – with equal vigour.
The EU's questions addressed the UN80 reform initiative, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), mediation in major conflicts, and the link between human rights protection and sustainable development. These were serious, substantive questions. But the EU's framing invoked "full respect for the UN Charter and international law" in each of its four interventions. The framing and the questions remained disconnected.
This matters because the selection is substantive. What is at stake is the independence of the office and its Charter-anchored authority. In a system where powerful states dismiss legal argumentation as optional, the Secretary-General is the last universally mandated voice holding power to legal account. Independence from permanent Security Council members and unwavering commitment to international law are requirements for the office's functioning. The EU lacks a formal role in Secretary-General selection; only member states do, individually. These dialogues enabled member states to press candidates on these criteria. Some did so individually. The EU, as such, did not, even though it could have.
The Secretary-General selection has been absent from European Council conclusions, Foreign Affairs Council agendas, and the EU's stated priorities at the UN. EU coordination existed at the technical-diplomatic level, including in the preparation of the EU's interventions during the dialogues. Security Council Report (SCR), a respected international NGO, found in its 15 April study that France "apparently aligned with the EU on most matters" during the General Assembly negotiations on the selection process. But at the crucial moment of drafting the joint letter – signed jointly by the Presidents of the General Assembly and the Security Council to formally launch the selection – the EU, as such, had no place at the table.
Elected Security Council members tried, and failed, to insert references to independence and international law into the joint letter. These references were carried by Denmark, but Denmark spoke as an elected member, not on behalf of the EU.
Understanding the selection process helps explain why this matters. Article 97 of the UN Charter assigns the appointment of the Secretary-General to the General Assembly upon the Security Council's recommendation. The process is expected to conclude in October 2026, with the new Secretary-General taking office on 1 January 2027. In practice, the Council, dominated by its five permanent members (P5), decides: it has never recommended more than one candidate, and the General Assembly has consistently accepted the Council's recommendation.
SCR documented that the P5 were "united on most contentious issues", preserving maximum flexibility in a process they control and in which they can block any candidate. They resisted nomination deadlines, rejected a detailed "job description" for the Secretary-General, and blocked any mechanism for the wider membership to express views on candidates.
The negotiations over the joint letter were equally telling. The P5 agreed on a draft before sharing it with the elected members. These, in turn, proposed references to independence, political leadership, commitment to international law, and a 1 April nomination deadline. The P5 rejected them all. The United States questioned the need for a letter.
The effect is visible in how the candidates conceive the office. Article 99 is the Secretary-General's sole independent Charter-based authority to bring matters to the Security Council's attention – the operational expression of the independence the rejected amendments sought to anchor. Article 99 does not appear in any of the four vision statements. When asked about it, candidates treated it as a last resort or as part of ongoing Council dialogue, rather than as an instrument they would actively use.
The dialogues exposed what the EU failed to ask. The four candidates presented themselves differently, but their operational stance converged, favouring engagement over enforcement, mediation over accusation, and private diplomacy over public assertion against Charter violations.
When pressed by other delegations, the pattern held. Sall, asked by the Lublin Triangle (Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland) about the Secretary-General's good offices role when a permanent Security Council member is the alleged perpetrator, declined to name Russia as responsible. Grossi, asked by Iran to take a position on US and Israeli strikes against IAEA-safeguarded facilities, answered in general terms. Grynspan, despite committing to "actively defend" international law in her vision statement, did not name Russia or affirm the Charter framing when Ukraine and the Czech Republic each pressed her. Bachelet, asked by Switzerland how she would protect the Secretary-General's independence if a P5 member violated international law, pointed to her personal record rather than specifying how she would confront such a case.
This convergence reflects what the P5-designed process produces. Candidates know that the Council ultimately decides, and that a robust defence of the Charter will complicate the Secretary-General's engagement with major powers. The incentives reward caution. Sharper questioning from delegations was the available test; the dialogues left it largely unrun. The next Secretary-General will need a diplomatic strategy that defends international law without retreating from it.
The EU's omissions reflect, in part, the European Council and capitals' lack of political engagement. To engage seriously, the EU would have to confront a structural reality: France's permanent Security Council seat means EU diplomacy at the UN is embedded in P5 dynamics. In the joint-letter negotiations, those dynamics worked against the references to independence, international law, and deadlines that elected members sought to introduce.
An honest EU discussion about the next Secretary-General would confront this configuration directly rather than sidestep it. It might not yield a coherent European position. Yet the absence of such discussion shows that the EU has not treated this selection as the defining moment it is.
The EU called for a Secretary-General who "matches principle with action". That demand now applies to the EU itself. Four EU member states will vote on the Council: France, Denmark, Greece, and Latvia. Those votes matter, but they cannot resolve the deeper question this cycle has made visible. The EU, as a coordinated political actor, has no seat on the body that defines the Secretary-General.
Whether it should pursue its own Council representation is a question the EU has long dodged. The early stages of the 2026 cycle have already made the cost of that avoidance harder to ignore.
