The G20 summit or Trump’s latest show on the international stage

The G20 summit or Trump’s latest show on the international stage

Dealing with the corona pandemic is the central theme of the summit of the main economic powers of the G20, which begins on Saturday as a videoconference led by Saudi Arabia.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and probably one last time Donald Trump will participate in the two-day deliberations. The president-elect of the United States, who will remain in office until January 20, will play a key role in the two-day conference. It is not only a brake on containing the pandemic, but also on the second main theme of the summit: the fight against global warming.

The summit was supposed to be a major event with thousands of guests in the Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh. The crown pandemic thwarted the royal family’s bill. Now the heads of state and government only chat for about six hours on video. Otherwise important conversations in private or in a small circle on the sidelines are no longer necessary.

However, there are some expectations from the G20, especially when it comes to Corona. It’s about this:

Pandemiebekämpfung

Just in time for the summit, there has been a series of encouraging news about the approval of corona vaccines. Chancellor Merkel expects it to be in December or shortly after the turn of the year. One of the topics of the summit will be how the layout will be designed. On Friday, UN Secretary General António Guterres again campaigned for the international Covax initiative, which aims to make vaccines available and affordable for everyone. “I urge all G20 members to become members of Covax,” he said. Federal Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD) made a similar statement: “All G20 states need to participate.”

More than 150 countries have already joined the Covax initiative, including China, but not the US Germany has already contributed € 100 million. However, the German delegation announced that there would be no more financial commitments at the G20 summit. Covax will need $ 11 billion by the end of 2021.

Debt relief for poor countries

At the summit, the European Union wants to campaign for greater debt relief for the world’s poorest countries. “We are convinced that more debt relief is needed,” EU Council President Charles Michel said before the summit. This is aimed at cushioning the consequences of the corona pandemic. Development organizations One and Oxfam pointed out before the summit that more than 200 million people were at risk of falling into extreme poverty as a result of the crown crisis.

At their virtual meeting in October 2020, the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors decided to extend the debt moratorium until June 2021. The decision on a further extension should be made no later than in the spring.

Climate protection

The G20 has found it especially difficult to address this issue in recent years. The reason was the withdrawal of US President Trump from the UN climate agreement in Paris to reduce greenhouse gases. The issue turned the G20 into a G19 plus 1. It is not expected that Trump will change his position in any way in what will probably be his last summit. Not much progress is to be expected here.

Human rights

Then there is another topic that will be present at the summit, but which will hardly be discussed: the human rights situation in the host country Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is massively criticized, among other things, for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of the government, at the Consulate General in Istanbul, on the death penalty, restriction of freedom of expression and the imprisonment of activists. Members of the Green Bundestag, the FDP, the left, but also the ruling SPD party asked Merkel before the summit to make a clear statement on the matter. In the large group, however, it will hardly come to that. The delegation of Germany said that there are other ways to deal with this problem. (ohe / sda / dpa)