German president warns rules-based global order under threat, calls for stronger UN reform

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned Monday that the international rules-based order is facing unprecedented strain, urging renewed global commitment to cooperation and stronger UN reform.

Speaking at the opening of the Hamburg Sustainability Conference, Steinmeier said the world is entering a period in which long-standing international norms are increasingly under threat.

"We live in a time when the international rules that have guided us for decades are under threat, when some powerful states no longer recognize these rules and brazenly break them when they stand in the way of their own power interests," he said, according to the Suddeutsche Zeitung daily.

He said global politics is increasingly shaped by "raw power politics, zero-sum thinking, and confrontation," replacing what he described as the foundations of a cooperative international system.

"A spirit of brutality and ruthlessness is blowing through international politics," Steinmeier added.

Despite these developments, Steinmeier stressed that abandoning multilateral cooperation would be the wrong course.

"A withdrawal from the United Nations would be short-sighted and fatal. Nevertheless, the UN must change, must become more efficient and effective, must prove that it can deliver better results than the strongmen with their fantasies of omnipotence," he said.