You say P5+1, I say E3+3

Wed, 09/30/2009 - 11:59am

What do you call the grouping of the United States, France, Britain, China, Russia, and Germany, who are due to meet with Iran tomorrow for nuclear talks? In the U.S. it is generally referred to as the wonderfully awkward P5+1. But of course it all depends on your perspective:

The latter grouping is known either as the P plus 1 (the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany) or the E3 plus 3, the three Europeans countries plus the others.

This is even worse than P5+1. There's nothing really "European" about this group and it's bizarre to refer a set of countries with an adjective that only describes half of them. Why not the "Pacific rim countries plus 3" or the "English-speakers plus 4"?

The only solutions I can see are to expand the security coucil so that countires like Germany don't need a special invite, or add another country with a vowel so they can have a proper acronym.



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I believe it is called...

...the E3+3 in reference to the initial EU-3 or E3 (France, UK, Germany) talks with Iran on its nuclear program earlier this decade.

It's still even more awkward

It's still even more awkward than the alternative.

I agree that...

...it is awkward but was merely pointing to its origins.