Paris (EFE).- The United States returned today to be a full member of UNESCO, an organization that it had left in 2018 during the presidency of Donald Trump.
The official welcome was communicated by the UN Organization for Education, Science and Culture, which already on June 30 had approved, at an extraordinary conference in Paris, the immediate re-entry plan proposed from Washington, which included the payment of a million-dollar debt dating from 2011.
“The return of the United States to UNESCO is now a reality: it has once again officially become a Member State of our Organization,” said UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay in a statement.
“This is excellent news for UNESCO, whose renewed momentum in recent years will be further strengthened. Our action will be stronger all over the world”, added Azoulay.
USA and a commitment to multilateralism
The re-entry, with which Unesco now has 194 members, became effective automatically after the US government signed and deposited the organization’s constitutive act, a process that ended this Tuesday.
This is a step, according to Azoulay, that not only strengthens the Paris-based agency, but also multilateralism.
“This is a historic moment. Our organization moves once again towards universality. I also want to share this victory for UNESCO with the whole United Nations family, because it is excellent news for multilateralism as a whole. If we want to meet the challenges of our century, there can only be a collective response,” he noted.
The United States had made official its intention to return to UNESCO at the beginning of June, a proposal that was accompanied by a financial plan that included not only paying its contribution as a member corresponding to 2023, but a calendar to pay off the debt of 619 million that it accumulated between 2011 and his departure from the organization, in addition to other voluntary contributions.
Specifically, it will make a contribution of an extra 150 million each year from 2024, which will be added to the mandatory annual membership fee (around 30 million) and extra voluntary contributions.
The plan was submitted for review at a special conference in Paris at the end of June, so that the American turn could be closed in July. The then 193 members gave majority support to the initiative, with only ten votes against (Russia and Palestine, China, Iran, Belarus, Nicaragua, Syria, Indonesia, North Korea and Eritrea).
A checkered history with Unesco
The United States had announced that it was leaving UNESCO at the end of 2017, during the tenure of the previous president, Donald Trump, who accused the institution of repeatedly adopting anti-Israel positions.
Washington had already left UNESCO in 1985, during the Ronald Reagan presidency, and returned in 2003.
In addition, in 2011, when Barack Obama was in the White House, the United States had frozen its mandatory annual contribution as a member of the organization, in application of a congressional legislation in reaction to the acceptance of Palestine as a member of UNESCO.
Biden and the step for the return
But in a letter sent to UNESCO on June 8, the State Department claimed to have taken note of the organization’s “efforts” to “implement key management and administrative reforms, as well as to reduce politicized debate, especially in related to the Middle East.
Washington thus expressed its willingness to re-enter the organization as soon as possible, a turn in line with the return to multilateralism of the Joe Biden Administration.
To get around the internal legislative obstacles related to Palestine, the US Congress last December promoted an exception by agreement between Republicans and Democrats that allows Unesco to be financed again.
The United States will thus once again be the main contributor to the basic budget of the organization, which is then supplemented with voluntary contributions for an amount that in recent years was almost equal to the mandatory contributions.