G-20 Disagrees on Role: Economic or Political Forum?

NEW DELHI: Just a day after the G-20 grouping under India’s presidency agreed unanimously on the New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration, including the paragraphs on the Ukraine conflict, French President Emmanuel Macron told a media briefing here that the G-20 was not a forum for political discussion but rather one on economics. “Let’s face it. The G-20 is not a forum for political discussion,” he said. “The core business (of the G-20) is economy, finance and climate. The core business is not (maintenance of) stability and peace,” he added.

The French President praised India for its G-20 leadership and said that “India did its utmost” and that “India provided a positive momentum in the current environment”, even as he lambasted Russia “for still waging war in Ukraine”. Defending the consensus agreed to by the West, he said his country had always supported a “just and lasting peace in Ukraine” and claimed “Russia had been isolated”. He added: “We need to engage the emerging markets (developing nations) … We have to resist fragmentation of this world.”

A senior European Union official said, meanwhile, on Sunday that “India’s strong leadership has preserved the G-20” and that the process of reaching a consensus was “cumbersome and hard”, adding that India “smartly included” Brazil and South Africa in helping to arrive at a consensus, adding that the West needs to take along the views of developing nations. In response to criticism from some quarters in Europe and sections of the Western media that the West conceded and gave away too much, the EU official conceded that if the declaration had a been a “purely European text”, the wording would have been different, but pointed out that there had to be “compromise” to reach consensus.
Notably, Russia was upbeat, with its foreign minister Sergey Lavrov saying that “we were able to prevent the West’s attempts to ‘Ukrainise’ the summit agenda” and hailing the summit as a “milestone”. Mr Lavrov said: “The active role of the Indian presidency has genuinely consolidated the G-20 countries from the Global South for the first time in history… It is a breakthrough summit in many ways. It provides us a way forward to move ahead in many issues. Our Brics partners -- Brazil, India, China, and South Africa -- have been particularly active and thanks to these consolidated positions taken by the Global South countries to uphold and protect their legitimate interests.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan said at a media briefing in New Delhi that “attempts to isolate Russia would fail” and added that Russia had agreed to supply millions of tonnes of foodgrain free to poor African nations and had requested Turkey to grind the grain to flour and help in this endeavour along with Qatar. He also supported the expansion of the UN Security Council permanent membership beyond the current five members and backed India’s candidature.

Japanese PM Fumio Kishida also termed the consensus achieved at the G-20 Leaders’ Declaration as a “truly meaningful achievement”.  

Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron had a working lunch with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who said the two leaders looked forward to taking bilateral ties to “scale new heights of progress”. The two sides also issued a joint statement that “reiterated their commitment to strengthen the defence cooperation through partnership in design, development, testing and manufacture of advanced defence technologies and platforms, and expand production in India, including for third countries in Indo-Pacific”.

The Turkish President, Mr Erdogan, also had a bilateral meeting with Mr Modi in which the two sides agreed to strengthen their bilateral ties in commerce and infrastructure.