Which of these countries should have permanent UNSC seats?

[politicus]

India is the obvious candidate. Brazil as the largest country in South America should be included too.

Japan might qualify as the worlds third largest economy, but size of the economy is an factor that can change quite a bit in the long run, so that's a bad criteria. Share of world population for developed/semi-developed economies is a more stable criteria.

While I think reducing Europes number of seats would be fair I don't see it happening, especially as EU will likely never get a coordinated foreign policy.

Africa doesn't have any valid UNSC candidates since Nigeria is such a mess and SA is too small.

We have had similar threads before.

So 6 permant members (China, India, US, Russia, Brazil, UK and France)

An alternative would be to make all UNSC members permanent and reduce it to 12. Then it could be:

- USA, Brazil, Germany, France, UK, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Japan, Indonesia and the African Union making it 12 members.

[politicus]

Germany and Japan pay the 2nd and 3rd highest share of the UN budget, and were only excluded from having a permanent seat because the UN was founded in 1945.

Granted, it would make more sense to have a single EU seat, or to abolish veto power altogether, but working within the system, I'd give permanent seats to India, Japan, and Germany.  Brazil, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Nigeria would be next on the docket.

Nigeria is far too weak both economically and as a state. Giving a seat to the African Union would make more sense.