United Nations Security Council: Working towards a consensus or for national interests?

With two draft resolutions proposals on the table, which disagree in very few yet important points, the adoption of a resolution on the Security Council now seems extremely difficult yet not impossible. 

The United Kingdom Delegation expressed earlier their agreement to the American-sponsored draft resolution, and their disagreement to a clause that would support the re-election of the Permanent Five members, yet is open to discussion and their wish is to work harmoniously with all members towards a unified resolution. 

In addition, the Indian delegation stressed the importance of a unified resolution and underlined that reaching a consensus is not impossible as most differences on the two draft resolutions are about numbers of extra seats, permanent and semi-permanent seats. 

But is this that simple in practice? What is the importance of extra and permanent seats to different nations? 

Russia declared that they would not be in support of the Chinese draft resolution because they would never agree to the infamous clause about the re-election of the Permanent Five Members. 

At the same time, the Chinese delegation stated that the only draft resolution they could support would be the German one, because “it is very democratic”. 

However, this is not the case for all delegates. Earlier, the delegate of Italy asked Germany how exactly are they inclusive and care for the wellbeing of the world population when they prefer their national interests over it and they undermine the opinions of their allies.