The four Central European countries, which make up the Visegrad Group, conveyed their support during talks with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on the sidelines of the 81st UN General Assembly. Slovak Foreign Minister Juraj Blanár, whose country currently holds the rotating V4 presidency, said the group agreed that India should be represented as a permanent member of the Council.
“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 the permanent member of the UN Security Council,” Blanár said after the meeting.
Jaishankar described the inaugural V4-India engagement as a “new historic occasion” and said the five sides had agreed to give the format greater regularity. Foreign ministers are expected to meet annually, while an annual business forum will be created to strengthen economic engagement between India and the four countries.
The meeting also produced agreement to expand cooperation beyond multilateral diplomacy. Jaishankar said the participants discussed closer political coordination, deeper economic ties and stronger partnerships in technology, innovation, research and education. Defence cooperation, connectivity, space and people-to-people links were also identified as areas for further work.
The V4 grouping comprises Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, all members of the European Union and NATO. Slovakia assumed the group’s rotating presidency in July 2026 and has said it wants to strengthen practical regional cooperation while broadening external partnerships.
Support from the four countries adds to backing India has received from several major powers for a permanent place on an expanded Security Council. India has argued that the current structure does not adequately reflect contemporary economic weight, population and the representation of developing countries, particularly from Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The Security Council has 15 members, including five permanent members — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — and 10 non-permanent members elected for two-year terms. India has served eight terms as an elected member, most recently in 2021-22.
Changing the Council’s permanent membership would require an amendment to the UN Charter. Under Article 108, an amendment must be approved by two-thirds of the General Assembly and ratified by two-thirds of UN member states, including all five existing permanent Security Council members.
India has also pressed for negotiations on Security Council reform to move towards a text-based process rather than remain confined to open-ended intergovernmental discussions. It has worked with the G4 — Brazil, Germany, Japan and India — in favour of expanding both permanent and non-permanent categories.
The endorsement is politically significant but does not by itself alter the membership of the Council. Reform remains tied to negotiations among the wider UN membership, where governments differ over the size of an enlarged Council, regional representation, the creation of additional permanent seats and whether any new permanent members should receive veto rights.
Those differences were under discussion during the 80th General Assembly session, when the intergovernmental negotiations examined competing proposals on representation and the veto. India has opposed the creation of a second tier of permanent members without equal rights, arguing that any expansion should avoid institutionalising unequal categories within the Council.
The V4 support therefore adds four national positions to a broader diplomatic campaign, while the formal threshold for Charter change remains higher.
The V4-India talks came during a UN General Assembly session in which reform of global institutions has remained a central theme for countries seeking broader representation in international decision-making. The discussion also covered the conflicts in Ukraine and the Gulf, according to Jaishankar.
