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U.N. Member States Accept New Deal on U.N. Budget
U.N. member states Saturday announced an accord on an overhaul of U.N. finances that would cut American dues to the world body for the first time in 27 years.
The announcement was made after a night of hard-nosed negotiations, during which the 189 U.N. member states overcame the last obstacles standing in the way of an agreement lowering U.S. dues to the international organization, diplomats said.
The accord, which lowers U.S. dues from 25 percent to 22 percent of the United Nations administrative budget, roughly US$1.08 billion this year, must still be adopted in two resolutions by the U.N. General Assembly, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said.
The formal acceptance of a reduction in U.S. dues to the United Nations was delayed again Saturday morning after months of intense talks at the Fifth Committee of the General Assembly, which is in charge of administrative and budgetary affairs.
Calculators and spreadsheets in hand, representatives from the 186 member states continued informal negotiations behind closed doors at 8:30 a.m. EST Saturday, aiming to iron out details of the new U.N. contribution scale informally accepted the day before.
South Korea did an about-face at the last minute, refusing an 85 percent hike in its dues, currently set at US$10.5 million, diplomats said.
In order to break the deadlock, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, spoke to South Korean Foreign Minister Lee Joung-binn, American diplomats said.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was also telephoning South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, U.N. officials said.
The general U.N. budget, which is covered by the dues from its member states, totals slightly more than US$1 billion a year. The peacekeeping budget, toward which the richer countries pay a dispassionately larger share than their dues assessment, exceeds US$3 billion a year, Eckhard said.
The increase in U.S. payments to the U.N. were deferred until 2002 after U.S. media mogul Ted Turner volunteered to provide US$34 million to make up the difference between old U.S. contribution level and the new in the first year.
The United States currently owes the world body more than US$1.5 billion, having given itself a unilateral deduction in payments over the last few years.
The United Nations, the largest intergovernmental organization in the world, relies fully on the member states to finance its various operations, from administration to peacekeeping missions. But the world body does not allow individuals to pay a government' s debts.
However, Washington permits gifts earmarked for special purposes, with the approval of Congress.
Diplomats here commented privately that while the Turner contribution was an ingenious idea, it was embarrassing for an individual to bail out the world's richest nation.
Holbrooke, who for nine months has been caught between a hostile Congress and nations angry at the U.S. debt, wants to settle the controversy before U.S. President Bill Clinton leaves office in mid-January.
The new administration of President-elect George W. Bush is known to want the issue out of the way soon.
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