V4 Nations Back India's Permanent UNSC Seat Bid at First-Ever Foreign Ministers' Meet

India's long-running campaign for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council received a fresh boost on Tuesday, with four Central European nations collectively endorsing the bid at their first-ever ministerial meeting with New Delhi.

A new grouping takes shape

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met his counterparts from the Visegrad Group, or V4 — Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic — on the sidelines of the 81st UN General Assembly in New York. It was the first time the four Central European countries and India had held a joint foreign ministers' meeting, a format Jaishankar described as a "new historic occasion."

Slovak Foreign and European Affairs Minister Juraj Blanar, speaking on behalf of the group, said the four nations were united in their support for India's permanent membership. "We all agree, as V4 countries, that India, as part of the Global South, an upcoming superpower in the Indo-Pacific region, must be at the table as a permanent member of the UN Security Council," Blanar said, in remarks shared by Jaishankar.

What the backing adds up to

The V4 endorsement adds a collective European voice to India's decades-long push for Security Council reform. India already counts the United States, Russia, France and the United Kingdom among the permanent members that have expressed support for its bid. China remains the only sitting permanent member yet to explicitly back New Delhi's candidacy.

India is also part of the G4 coalition alongside Brazil, Germany and Japan, which has jointly campaigned for expanding both the permanent and non-permanent categories of the 15-member council. The council currently comprises five permanent members with veto power — the US, Russia, China, France and the UK — and 10 non-permanent members serving two-year terms.

Any actual expansion would require agreement among the full UN membership and amendments to the UN Charter, meaning the backing of existing permanent members remains central to any reform. One of the thorniest unresolved questions is whether new permanent members would receive full veto rights. India has taken the position that there should be no two-tier system, arguing in an April 2026 statement that permanent members cannot be split between those with veto power and those without. The African Union has pushed a similar "all or none" line while separately calling for the eventual elimination of the veto altogether.

Beyond the UN seat

The V4-India meeting was framed as the start of a broader institutional relationship rather than a one-off event. Jaishankar said the two sides agreed to hold annual foreign ministers' meetings going forward and to establish an annual business forum, reflecting New Delhi's deepening engagement with the European Union and its member states. Discussions at the meeting also touched on technology and innovation, defence cooperation, space, connectivity and people-to-people ties, along with an exchange of views on the Ukraine conflict and developments in the Gulf.

Why it matters

The timing is notable: the meeting took place during UN General Assembly's high-level week, when nearly 130 heads of state and government are gathered in New York and Security Council reform is a recurring talking point on the sidelines. While the V4's support does not change the mechanics of reform, it signals a broadening base of backers for India's candidacy at a moment when the UN itself faces pointed questions about its relevance amid ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. For India, formalising a joint track with the V4 also opens a new channel for economic and strategic cooperation with Central Europe, independent of its existing bilateral ties with individual EU members.

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