STEFANIE LOOS
“We have a lot to do there, we left it behind for far too long,” said Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) on Monday evening at the start of the meeting in the British capital. Further topics will be the conflicts in Syria, Ukraine, Myanmar and Afghanistan. On the sidelines of the deliberations, Maas will meet with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken for a one-on-one meeting.
It is the first face-to-face meeting of the foreign ministers of seven leading western industrialized countries in two years. In addition to hosts Great Britain and Germany, the group includes the USA, France, Italy, Canada and Japan. South Korea, Australia, India and South Africa have also been invited to the talks in London. The British Presidency wants to make the G7 even more of a central forum for the great democracies.
Maas welcomed this approach. “More and more authoritarian states or authoritarian state leaders try to set their model against that of the liberal democracies,” he said. That is why it is good to define common values within the G7 and develop common strategies. He cited free trade as an example. “We, the G7, are the free world, and we want free trade, instead of gag agreements as we know it from others.”
At the meeting in London, the G7 summit of heads of state and government in Cornwall from June 11th to 13th is to be prepared. It will be the first major summit meeting with the new US President Joe Biden. During the tenure of his predecessor Donald Trump, the G7 had lost a lot of its importance. Trump had little interest in the format of the conversation, and even later dropped the final declaration.
“There was actually essentially no G7 anymore because the United States had long since withdrawn,” said Maas at the time. “It’s different now.”
The meeting of foreign ministers in London began on Monday evening with a dinner. Six working meetings and a joint dinner with the foreign ministers of the host countries are planned for Tuesday. In between there is still space for one-on-one discussions. Maas has arranged to meet his Japanese counterpart Toshimitsu Motegi and US Secretary of State Blinken.
According to Maas, the latter meeting will, among other things, deal with the NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan. The USA and Germany are the two largest contributors to troops there. In addition, the escalation of the conflict between pro-Russian separatists and government troops in eastern Ukraine is on the agenda of the afternoon’s talks. Blinken plans to visit Ukraine after the G7 meeting.
The G7 conference takes place under strict corona conditions. Everyone present must be tested for the virus daily. The conference lasts until Wednesday and should then end with a joint final declaration.