Videoconferencing: G20 Summit – Trump’s latest show on the international stage?

Chancellor Angela Merkel, Chinese Heads of State Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and probably one last time Donald Trump will participate in the two-day G20 online consultations, which begin on Saturday. The US president-elect, who will remain in office until January 20, will play a key role at the two-day conference. It is not only a brake on containing the pandemic, but also on the second key 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 give only about six hours on video. Conversations otherwise so important in private or in a small circle on the sidelines are no longer needed.

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

Just in time for the summit, a host of encouraging news has come in about the approval of corona vaccines. Chancellor Merkel hopes it could be in December or shortly after the start of the year. One of the top issues will be how the distribution 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 all. “I urge all G20 members to become Covax members,” he said. Federal Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD) made a similar statement: “It is necessary for all G20 countries to participate.”

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

At the summit, the European Union wants to campaign for further debt relief for the poorest countries in the world. “We are convinced that more debt relief is needed,” said EU Council President Charles Michel before the summit. This is intended to cushion the consequences of the corona pandemic. Development organizations One and Oxfam pointed out before the summit that more than 200 million people are at risk of sliding into extreme poverty due to the crown crisis.

At the virtual meeting in October 2020, finance ministers and central bank governors of the G20 agreed to extend the debt moratorium until June 2021. A decision on a further extension is expected to be taken by spring at the latest.

The G20 has found this problem particularly difficult to address in recent years. The reason was US President Trump’s withdrawal from the United Nations Paris climate agreement to reduce greenhouse gases. The issue has turned the G20 into a G19 plus 1. It is not to be expected that Trump will in any way change his position at what is likely to be his last summit. Not so much progress is expected here.

Then there is another theme that will be present at the summit, but which will hardly be discussed: the situation of human rights in the host country of Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is heavily criticized, among other things, for the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of the government, in the Consulate General in Istanbul, for the death penalty, the restriction of freedom of expression and the incarceration 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 this. The German delegation stated that there are other ways to address this issue.