The establishment and signing of the Charter of the Board of Peace attracted significant public attention for a couple of weeks. The questions regarding the scope of this new organization, the goals of its chairman regarding the foundations of the current international legal order and its membership were all the subject of great scrutiny. Yet, one of the most important questions regarding this organization is what the European Union’s strategy is during the 21st century’s geopolitical competition. This post argues that the EU should adopt a clear and well-established long-term strategy to enhance its influence in the world for the sake of the preservation of the European way of life.

In November 2025 the Security Council of the United Nations (UNSC) adopted Resolution 2803 (2025), which included in its Annex the Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict (Comprehensive Plan). The international community held its breath in the hope that this could solve a horrible armed conflict in the Middle East and help to establish peace within the region. The Resolution empowered a new organization, the Board of Peace (BoP) with international legal personality, powers to establish subsidiary entities, and even with the use of force (through a reference to international humanitarian law), if necessary.

The Board of Peace was established in January 2026 and was in the international spotlight for weeks. The reason for the attention was not only the aspiration to implement the Comprehensive Plan, but the unusual nature of the new organization also raised interesting questions. Analyzing the Charter of the BoP and the international organization’s structure raises the question of whether it is in line with international law and whether the EU and/or its Member States should participate in it.

The Charter of the BoP does not mention the United Nations (UN), the UNSC Resolution empowering the BoP in the name of the international community of states to implement the Comprehensive Plan, or any international instrument of organization for that matter. This is particularly interesting, considering that the scope of the organization should be regulated in the Charter in accordance with the international legal instrument founding and empowering it. This is the first point where legal scholars and the international public started to ask the question, whether the BoP seeks to compete with the UN, or the UNSC itself and to solve more conflicts than stated in the UNSC resolution.

Secondly, the preamble of the Charter of the BoP seems to be critical with the current international legal order and the UN. Sentences like „declaring that durable peace requires pragmatic judgment, common-sense solutions, and the courage to depart from approaches and institutions that have too often failed”, or „emphasizing the need for a more nimble and effective international peace-building body” seem to be going into this direction as well.

Thirdly, the functioning of the BoP seems unusual from an international law standpoint. The name of the first chairman of the BoP is specifically named, the chairman and the representative of the US could be two different people in the future, meaning that (for example, in case of a tie in the BoP) there would be two American votes in the organization, while other states would be represented by one. The organization ceases to exist if the chairman does not confirm its continuation periodically and the chairman designates his own successor. Membership, structure, decision-making seems to be deeply centralized as well. The chairman of the BoP invites prospective candidates to the organization. The chairman has a wide-ranging powers to decide who may be a member of the organization, who can remain one and can terminate memberships in the organization (unless a 2/3 of Member States vote otherwise). The membership lasts only three years, unless the chairman decides otherwise or the Member States pay „USD $1,000,000,000 in cash”.

The chairman of the BoP has the right to adopt resolutions. He has the last word regarding setting the agenda of BoP meetings and in the interpretation of the Charter, in case of contention. In case of a tie, the chairman makes the decision within the BoP, which decides by the majority of its members present. He has the right to confirm if a member state is not represented by a head of state or government. He may establish subcommittees and subsidiary organs. He also selects the members of the Executive Board.

The language and structure of the organization resemble a private law entity, with the chairman having such unusually broad powers, contribution “in cash” as in a limited liability company or buying stocks, naming organs of the organization “Executive Body” and “chief executive”.

All in all, the BoP brings up questions of legitimacy, equal sovereignty of states and departing from established structures and principles of the law of international organizations. This has led to a strange conundrum in case of the EU’s representation at the inaugural meeting of the BoP and the signing of its Charter. The Council did not take a unanimous a decision, as it should be in the field of CFSP, whether the EU should participate in the new international organization or not and the European Commission was in a tough situation. Ursula von der Leyen received an invitation to the meeting, but without the necessary decision, the Commission could not join the organization. Therefore, the Commissioner for Mediterranean issues, Dubravka Šuica was present as an observer at the meeting, which caused public attention and claims of institutional overreach against the European Commission, especially due to the lack of democratic principles in the BoP’s structure and the open questions regarding its relationship towards the UN.

This incident highlights a greater problem behind the legal technicalities. The Council did not adopt a specific roadmap for its relationship with the BoP or any other approach for that matter known to the public, while the European Council did not conclude on the EU’s relationship with the BoP.

It is not possible to tell at this point whether the BoP will be a success story. Looking at the relatively short list of participating states, it seems like the whole international community is either not supportive or is waiting to see where things are going. It could lead to further fragmentation of international law or it could be dissolved in a few years, even according to its own Charter. Maybe the lack of Council decision regarding the BoP leading to an observer-status participation was useful from this perspective.

Nevertheless, there is one problem that this issue has brought forth: the EU still does not have a common foreign policy strategy ready for the changing international legal order, which would be much needed in the 21^st century to preserve the European way of life.

Árpád Lapu is an assistant research fellow at the Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary. He was a policy adviser on constitutional issues at the European Parliament between 2019-2024. He worked as an adviser at the Ministry of Justice of Hungary (2017-2019) and the Ministry of European Union Affairs (2024-2026), conducting EU law, international law and comparative constitutional analyses. He has earned his JD at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University in Hungary, has a BA in international relations from the University of Szeged, and an MA in European and international administration from Andrássy Gyula German Speaking University in Budapest. He has completed an LLM in international law at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCLouvain).