A/70/PV.107 General Assembly

As members will recall, at its 106th plenary meeting this morning, after three rounds of balloting, including two rounds of restricted balloting, the Assembly elected the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan and Sweden as members of the Security Council for a two-year term beginning on 1 January 2017. There remains one seat to be filled from among the Western European and other States. We shall therefore proceed to the third restricted ballot. This fourth round of balloting shall be restricted to the States from among the Western European and other States that were not elected but obtained the largest number of votes in the previous ballot, namely, Italy and the Netherlands. This is in accordance with rule 94 of the rules of procedure. Before we begin the voting process, I should like to remind members that pursuant to rule 88 of the rules of procedure of the General Assembly, no representative shall interrupt the voting except on a point of order on the actual conduct of the voting. We shall now begin the voting process. Ballot papers marked “C” will now be distributed. I ask representatives to write on the ballot papers the name of the State for which they wish to vote. Ballot papers marked “C” for the Western European and other States will be declared invalid if they contain the name of a State other than Italy or the Netherlands, as well as if they contain the name of more than one State.

The result of the voting is as follows: Group C — Western European and other States Number of ballot papers: 193 Number of invalid ballots: 0 Number of valid ballots: 193 Abstentions: 2 Number of members voting: 191 Required two-thirds majority: 128 Number of votes obtained: Netherlands 96 Italy 95 Since the result of this ballot is inconclusive, there remains one seat to be filled from among the Western European and other States. We must therefore proceed to the first unrestricted ballot. This fifth round of balloting is in accordance with rule 94 of the rules of procedure. I remind the Assembly that any Member State from among the Western European and other States may be a candidate except the outgoing States, States that are already members of the Security Council and the States that were elected this morning. To make this clearer, I shall mention the names of those members that cannot be elected in the present balloting, namely, New Zealand, Spain and Sweden. Before we begin the voting process, I should like to remind members that, pursuant to rule 88 of the rules of procedure of the General Assembly, no representative shall interrupt the voting except on a point of order on the actual conduct of the voting. We shall now begin the voting process. Ballot papers marked “C” will now be distributed. May I ask representatives to write on the ballot papers marked “C” the name of the State for Western European and other States for which they wish to vote. Ballot papers marked “C” for Western European and other States will be declared invalid if they contain the name of more than one State. Names of Member States on the ballot papers that do not belong to the Western European and other States will not be counted at all.

The result of the voting is as follows: Group C — Western European and other States Number of ballot papers: 193 Number of invalid ballots: 1 Number of valid ballots: 192 Abstentions: 2 Number of Members voting: 190 Required two-thirds majority: 127 Number of votes obtained: Netherlands 95 Italy 95

Since this unrestricted ballot is inconclusive, I therefore propose that we suspend the meeting for 20 minutes.

I give the floor to His Excellency Mr. Albert Koenders, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands.

First of all, I would like to express my thanks to all delegations for their patience. The signal sent by the Assembly this afternoon has been quite clear, and I think it was reflected in the last vote, with 95 votes for Italy and 95 votes for the Kingdom of the Netherlands. That means there is a clear message that the Assembly appreciates both our countries in representing it in the Security Council. Therefore, my colleague, Mr. Gentiloni, and I would like to put forward a proposal, subject to the full endorsement of the Group of Western European and other States, to split the term. That is to say that Italy would be in the Council for the period from 2017 to 2018 and the Netherlands in the subsequent year from 2018 to 2019. Once such an endorsement has been reached, I propose that you, Mr. President, put forward a procedure for the resumption of voting. In closing, I would like to mention, on behalf of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and my colleagues in this Hall  — the Prime Ministers of Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten  — that we are extremely grateful for the significant support we have received from all delegations during our campaign in our fight for peace, justice and development. In that context and in view of the voting this afternoon, we have discussed this with our Italian colleague and we are looking forward to possible approval of our proposal.

I now give the floor to His Excellency Mr. Paolo Gentiloni, Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Italy.

I confirm, on behalf of the Republic of Italy, what my colleague and friend Mr. Albert Koenders just said. First of all, I thank all delegations for their patience and support. I think it was an interesting day because of this competition. We wanted to send a message of unity between two European countries, so we took the opportunity of this perfect parity  — 95 to 95  — to agree on a proposal that sends such a message of unity. Under that proposal, we would serve one year each in the Security Council. The formal implementation of our agreement will be submitted soon to the Group of Western European and other States. It would be an honour for Italy to serve in the Security Council in 2017 and to cooperate with the Netherlands serving in 2018. I just want to finish by saying that it was a difficult competition, as the results have shown, but from the Italian point of view it was an extraordinary opportunity to strengthen relations with all countries. The competitive election had many negative aspects, but it had one extraordinary positive aspect in that it gave us an opportunity to get to know the entire United Nations membership better. This is what we have gained from this opportunity. I thank everybody very much and hope that this agreement will be a good example of a possible resolution to the difficult situation that we have had with this vote.

I now give the floor to the representative of Norway as Chair of the Group of Western European and other States.

As you said, Mr. President, I am taking the floor in Norway’s capacity as Chair of the Group of Western European and other States, and the information I am giving is for this regional group. We will call a meeting of the Western European and other States tomorrow at 10 a.m. to follow up on the statements just made by the Foreign Ministers of the Netherlands and Italy. We will come back to the Western European and other States members with more precise information via e-mail as soon as possible.