The international order is under attack, UN General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock told MEPs on Tuesday, calling for the European Union to step up its engagement in international relations and support for the United Nations.
“The international order is not only under pressure, it is also under attack,” Baerbock told the European Parliament plenary session in Strasbourg.
In her address to MEPs, Baerbock said the world is facing a new and more problematic type of crisis: “conflicts that are not even fought under the pretext of self-defense or respect for international law, but are often carried out in open defiance of it.”
“We have learned the hard way that too often a lukewarm response and ignoring what we know is wrong in order to remain diplomatic is not a successful strategy,” she warned.
“Today the world is calling. It’s not just about Greenland, it’s also about Latin America, Africa, it’s about the international peace order… about the UN Charter,” she said and said: “The UN needs Europe.”
The United Nations needs Europe to defend the Charter itself and the principles of the UN, but also to reform it, said the German politician who was elected president of the UN General Assembly last year.
Baerbock also called on the EU to defend truth and democracy against the use of misinformation and disinformation as a tool of power politics, warning that online deepfakes systematically targeting women pose a threat to democratic and open societies.
She welcomed the strengthening of the EU’s international relations through new trade agreements with South American countries gathered in Mercosur and India, additional funding for the African Free Trade Area, and described the EU’s global economic engagement as a long-term investment in global prosperity and security.
She called for strong EU support for the UN reform process and warned of the funding crisis facing the world body “as member states have been paying their contributions late for years… or not at all” while the existing inflexible funding rules are hampering the UN’s work.
Annalena Baerbock is the fifth woman to chair the United Nations General Assembly. She served as Germany’s Federal Foreign Minister from December 2021 to May 2025 and was a member of the German parliament from 2013 to June 2025. Baerbock was co-chair of the Green Party from 2018 to 2022.
