India’s campaign for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has received fresh support from four Central European countries — Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The announcement came during the first Visegrad Group (V4)-India Foreign Ministers’ Meeting held on the sidelines of the 81st UN General Assembly in New York.
The four countries, which form the Visegrad Group, expressed support for India’s permanent membership. Slovakia’s Foreign Minister Juraj Blanár said the V4 countries agree that India, as an important country of the Global South and an emerging power in the Indo-Pacific, should have a permanent place on the UN Security Council. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar described the first V4-India meeting as a “historic occasion.”
India has been seeking reforms to make the 15-member UNSC more representative of today’s global realities. France, the UK, the US and Russia have also backed India’s permanent membership bid. India is additionally part of the G4 grouping with Brazil, Germany and Japan, which supports expansion of the Security Council. However, gaining permanent membership would require broader agreement and changes to the UN framework.
