Language on Russia-Ukraine war still point of contention in G-20

At the key G-20 events in Gandhinagar and Hampi, the member nations are in the process of drafting the Finance Ministers’ communique and the Leaders’ statements respectively. In both, the sticking point remains the same: The language and wording of two paragraphs dealing with the global impact of Russia’s war with Ukraine and its economic fallout.

Hampi is hosting the G-20 Sherpas’ meeting, led by India’s Sherpa Amitabh Kant, and work is in full swing on the statement that the heads of state will endorse in September when they meet in New Delhi. The G-20 Finance track deputies, led by Economic Affairs Secretary Ajay Seth and Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor, are drafting the communique which the Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors are expected to release on July 18.

Sources told DH that in both the meetings, G-7 nations and the Russia-China grouping are still in disagreement over the language pertaining to the war in Europe.

Read | Geopolitical wrangling seen shadowing India’s G-20 finance meeting

This is the one topic on which host India has not been able to find a consensus in the nine months it has been the President. Officials said that if the deadlock isn’t broken closer to the Leaders’ meeting in September, some ‘heavy lifting’ on the part of the Prime Minister’s Office may be required.

The language in the two paragraphs has been directly picked from the Leader’s Statement used in the Bali Declaration under Indonesia’s presidency last year.

The paragraphs state that the war is causing immense human suffering and exacerbating existing fragilities in the global economy, and reiterated the United Nations resolution which deplored “in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine.”

Because Russia and China opposed this language, the last two G-20 FMCBG meetings, held in Bengaluru and Washington DC, could not issue the communique, as that would require unanimous consent among all members.

There is hope and optimism for a joint statement at the end of the Leader’s Summit in September, officials said.

India for its part has stressed that it wants to focus on development issues rather than geo-political ones, with Indian Sherpa Amitabh Kant on Wednesday noting that the conflict wasn’t a priority for the country and discussions regarding the conflict’s language were being held bilaterally and not in the full G20 group.

Nevertheless, the success of this presidency depends on the issuance of a unanimous joint Leaders’ statement.

Leaders in India don’t want a redo of the Bali declaration, which did not hold for long, as the situation soon changed with Russia pointing the finger at the increased supply of weapons to Ukraine, heightened NATO involvement in the conflict, along with the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipelines which bring Russian gas to Europe.

“If discussions in Indonesia were 90% about the conflict, in India, they are making up only 10 per cent. Nobody wants to talk about geopolitics here,” said an official in Hampi. Even if analysts are portraying it to be the focal point of the summit and are losing the “big picture,” observers shouldn’t fall for this technicality, they said.