Fighting the pandemic and reforming international structures: what issues will the leaders of the G20 countries discuss at the online summit

Russian President Vladimir Putin will take part in the G20 summit on November 21.

This was announced by the press secretary of the head of state Dmitry Peskov.

"The president plans, he will take part on Saturday (in the G20 summit. -

), the speech will be 21 (November. -

)," Peskov quoted TASS as saying.

Recall that the G20 summit will be held under the chairmanship of Saudi Arabia on November 21-22.

This year's event is being held online due to restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic.

This is not the first meeting of the leaders of the G20 countries in this mode: in March this year, Riyadh convened an emergency G20 summit in connection with the coronavirus pandemic, which also took place online.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin during the emergency online G20 summit in March 2020

• Reuters

• © Sputnik / Kremlin

The G20 online summit will traditionally be held behind closed doors - only the opening speech and the final press conference will be available to journalists.

According to Peskov, the main topics at the conference for Vladimir Putin will be the fight against COVID-19 and minimizing the consequences of the pandemic for the economy.

In turn, Svetlana Lukash, the representative of the President of Russia in the G20, said that the approval of the final declaration of the G20 online summit is “difficult,” but the document will be ready and will fix the commitment to jointly solving world problems.

Lukas stressed that "this year, the G20's draft final declaration will reflect the determination and commitment of the G20 countries to a multilateral approach to addressing all global challenges."

She explained that before the pandemic, "there were more and more doubts about the need for multilateral cooperation," and the situation with the coronavirus "only exacerbated this situation."

“In this regard, it was important not to lose the trust, the interaction that exists in the G20, and to continue common approaches and understanding that only through joint efforts of the leading economies on the basis of coordinated approaches can we overcome global problems,” Lukash said. 

Fighting

COVID

-19

One of the main achievements of the upcoming G20 summit, according to Lukas, will be the recognition of coronavirus vaccination as a "global public good."

In addition, according to her, the G20 leaders will assess the result of the implementation of their previous agreements on the fight against coronavirus.

This will be done on the first day of the summit - November 21.

She recalled that at the first stage of the pandemic, countries tried to fight the coronavirus on their own.

In these conditions, the G20 has become the platform within which states have the opportunity to discuss common approaches to solving this problem.

According to Lukash, the parties will also discuss reforming the World Health Organization (WHO).

She noted that the ineffectiveness of WHO at the beginning of the pandemic is due, among other things, to insufficient funding of this organization.

However, the Sherpa stressed that WHO "must always be at the center of all international efforts to prevent any health crisis and to ensure common approaches to health systems in all countries."

“Russia has always stressed that there is no alternative to WHO, but it is necessary to strengthen its potential,” Lukash said.

Recall that WHO's actions in a pandemic are often criticized.

Most of all, they are dissatisfied with the work of the organization in Washington.

In May of this year, Trump announced a temporary break in US relations with the WHO, accusing this structure of being controlled by China and refusing to reform.

• WHO emblem

• Reuters

• © Denis Balibouse

According to Nikita Danyuk, Deputy Director of the Institute for Strategic Studies and Forecasts of the RUDN University, member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, WHO may be given new powers in the process of reforming.

“Now WHO is being criticized.

But no one says that WHO, in fact, is not endowed with any powers other than making recommendations that can simply not be implemented.

Strengthening the effectiveness of WHO could be achieved by expanding its functionality, "the analyst explained in an interview with RT.

In turn, political scientist Alexander Asafov noted that criticism of WHO is not always objective and is sometimes explained by political motives.

“For example, Trump accuses WHO of supporting China.

So he wants to explain the fact that the United States slept through the beginning of the pandemic and is not coping with it now.

By the way, under Joe Biden, this position may be revised, since he advocates a return to cooperation with WHO, ”the analyst said in an interview with RT.

WTO and ecology

Environmental issues will also be discussed at the summit.

Svetlana Lukash expects that this year it will be possible to reach "a common approach of all the G20 countries on climate change issues, which has not happened for several years."

“This year we managed to agree, and this process has been going on for some time, and it is especially important that finally all the G20 countries will have a common understanding of this global problem,” she said.

The leaders of the G20 states will also touch upon topics related to the protection of citizens' rights, business support and approaches to vaccine development.

Another important topic that can be discussed by the conference participants is the reform of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Lukash recalled that Moscow supports the idea of ​​reforming this structure.

“We hope that the reform will continue, because there is no alternative to the WTO, all world trade should be regulated on understandable, universal rules, and only the WTO can provide a single approach and the same rules of the game for all,” Lukash said.

However, she stressed that the discussion of the reform is not easy.

“The issue is very difficult, but this year we have made some progress.

Despite the situation in the WTO itself with the actual blocking of the work of a number of its key functions, the G20 considered the possibilities of resuming this work, increasing the efficiency of the WTO governing bodies, "said the representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the G20.

In recent years, the international community has been actively discussing the need to reform the WTO.

According to experts, many members of this organization believe that it can no longer cope with its tasks.

Let us recall that the goals of the WTO are the liberalization of world trade, ensuring fair conditions for competition, and removing trade barriers.

• WTO headquarters

• Reuters

• © Denis Balibouse

In particular, the United States is unhappy with the fact that some countries that have developing status within the WTO have long been among the richest, and therefore it is unfair for them to receive preferences from the organization.

According to analysts, in this context, the United States speaks primarily of China, with which Washington under Trump began a trade war.

In August 2019, Trump even threatened to withdraw from the WTO.

The fact that the WTO needs modernization has been repeatedly said by the head of the RF Ministry of Economic Development Maxim Oreshkin.

Moscow, in particular, notes that in recent years, some WTO members have begun to deviate from the organization's rules, using loopholes in its regulations.

The EU also presented its plan for the modernization of the WTO in 2018, noting that this structure is in a deep crisis.

According to the document, the changes should affect the rules of international trade, strengthening the monitoring role of the WTO and overcoming the coming stagnation in the dispute settlement system within the organization.

“Many countries refuse to follow the values ​​and fundamental principles of the WTO.

A number of key players openly engage in discriminatory policies, promote protectionism, and contribute to the organization's credibility declining.

All of this is detrimental to the business climate.

To rectify this situation, it is necessary to improve the WTO mechanisms, ”said Nikita Danyuk.

"Join forces"

According to experts, the summit will raise the issue of “internationalizing efforts to combat coronavirus,” however, the politicization of this problem, which has become clearly visible in the creation of a vaccine against COVID-19, may prevent the achievement of specific agreements.

“It can be seen how the issue of the coronavirus vaccine has become very politicized.

For example, Russia was the first to introduce a vaccine to the world community.

Some countries, including the EU, already want to test it.

But they are under political pressure from the West to give it up, "Danyuk said.

Political analyst Alexander Asafov adheres to a similar point of view.

He believes that the summit is unlikely to be able to agree on joint efforts to combat the pandemic and its consequences due to the position of Western countries.

“The parties will present the current state of affairs.

Our country will offer to join efforts, but given the logic of the Western world, including in the development of a vaccine, it is unlikely that it will be possible to come to a common denominator.

Perhaps the participants will discuss the future of WHO, but no more, ”the analyst suggested.

According to Nikita Danyuk, the issue of sanctions will also be discussed at the conference.

We will remind, the EU and the US refused to weaken economic restrictions during the pandemic, despite the UN call.

“In the context of the collapse of the global economy, sanctions are doubly destructive ... But at the summit, it is unlikely that the solution to this issue will get off the ground,” Danyuk said.

In his opinion, the difficulties that arose in drawing up the final declaration were quite predictable.

He noted that disagreements between countries appear even when discussing such pressing problems as the fight against the pandemic and its consequences.

“Each country has its own specifics.

Therefore, they will agree on a common communiqué, but there will be general words about the need to minimize the consequences, move away from politicization, and so on ... However, one cannot conclude from this that such summits are useless.

They provide an opportunity for dialogue, without which all these problems cannot be solved in any case, ”the analyst concluded.