Buenos Aires, Dec 23 (EFE).- Argentine Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), launched his candidacy for Secretary-General of the United Nations on Monday in Buenos Aires, stating that the UN needs to be 'less declarative and more active.' He also presented himself as 'a secretary-general who will roll up his sleeves and get to work.'
'We need a secretary-general who will roll up his sleeves and go where the problem is, a secretary-general who will cross a front line even if there is a war,' Grossi said on Monday at an event in the Argentine capital.
Although his candidacy had been formally presented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Argentina on November 26, Grossi officially launched his bid in his country on Monday alongside Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno at an event at the Ministry headquarters and later at another organized by the Argentine Council for International Relations (CARI).
The candidate warned about the 'absence of the United Nations' in the main conflicts on the planet and emphasized that his experience could be vital to changing this.
'I have managed to get two belligerents to talk.' He added: 'We need a United Nations that is less declarative and more active.'
Grossi also addressed the concerns raised by the United States regarding the use of UN funds: 'The countries that finance this enormous international effort have every right to question what is being done with the resources paid by their taxpayers.'
'It is very important that we have that dose of accountability, that we account for what we are doing,' he opined.
Grossi, 64, is a career diplomat and was president of the UN Group of Governmental Experts on the International Register of Conventional Arms from 1997 to 2000, and later an advisor to the UN Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament. From 2002 to 2007, he was Chief of Staff of the IAEA and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons within the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Director General for Political Coordination from 2007 to 2010, and has served at the Argentine Embassy in Belgium and the Argentine Mission to the United Nations Office in Geneva.
From 2010 to 2013, he was Deputy Director General of the IAEA, and from 2013 to 2019, he was Argentine Ambassador to Austria, a post he left to lead the IAEA.
The race for the Secretary-Generalship will accelerate with the arrival of the new year in a process with different phases in which the UN member states can present their candidates.
The next UN Secretary-General will take office on January 1, 2027, and besides Grossi, the name of former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet is also among the top contenders.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), participates in a press conference on December 22, 2025, in Buenos Aires (Argentina).
'We have managed to maintain dialogue with the Islamic Republic of Iran even though they have threatened to kill us.' On this issue, he suggested the need for a dialogue-based and impartial approach and added: 'It is up to us to correct the course of this ship and steer it away from irrelevance.'
'We need a United Nations that is connected to the problems of the people and not to the approval of thick documents, and I say this as a diplomat who has dedicated his entire life to those document consensuses that no one reads later,' he expressed.
Argentina's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Worship, Pablo Quirno (l), and Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Mariano Grossi, participate in a press conference on December 22, 2025, in Buenos Aires (Argentina).
Other potential candidates include former Costa Rican Vice President Rebeca Grynspan; Ecuadorian María Fernanda Espinosa; Barbados' Prime Minister Mia Mottley; ECLAC Executive Secretary Alicia Bárcena; and former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
'We have achieved two ceasefires between Ukraine and Russia to prevent a nuclear accident at the Zaporizhzhia plant.' 'We have spoken to Vladimir Putin and a few days later to Volodymyr Zelenskyy.'
