Before Russia invaded Ukraine, this year’s Group of 7 summit was supposed to provide an opportunity to forget the typical geopolitics and finance and focus on the future. The main themes were climate, public health amid the coronavirus pandemic and equality around the world.
Instead, most analysts expect the conference to be “Ukraine, Ukraine and then some Ukraine,” as Sudha David-Wilp of Germany’s Marshall Fund, a public policy think tank, put it.
The war has also changed the main topics that observers hope to see covered. Here are some of the top questions from foreign policy experts in Germany and elsewhere.
Can Western leaders hold out against Russia for the long term?
While European and American leaders have largely managed to speak with one voice on the war, experts say Moscow hopes rifts will begin to develop as the energy crisis worsens and economic problems like runaway inflation begin to bite.
G7 leaders “need to send a message that they can handle these simultaneous crises,” said Thorsten Benner of the Global Public Policy Institute. “And they have to convince countries outside the traditional ‘West’ that they mean it, that they will ensure global food security.”
However, not all of this has to be done in public.
“They need to have an internal discussion about the potential for runaway inflation, for gas austerity this winter,” Mr Benner said.
Can Western countries formulate a vision for the end of the war?
Europe and the United States have stressed that Ukraine, not foreign leaders, will determine how the war with Russia will end. Although they provide more advanced weapons, they have insisted that NATO powers cannot be involved in the conflict, partly for fear of a nuclear standoff with Russia.
Furthermore, the objectives often look blurry.
Germany and France have hinted that they want to move towards negotiations, but to deviate from that and express their full support for Kiev’s victory during a visit to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky this month. And the United States has collapsed weapons, but has also indicated that it agrees not to risk an escalation.
Foreign policy analysts say G7 leaders should discuss what specifically they hope to achieve, and how, and make that clear to Ukraine and the public.
“That will be a main theme – the question: how will this war end? And is there a Western point of view?” said Ulrich Speck, a foreign policy analyst in Berlin. “Certainly, it will always be up to the Ukrainians to decide. But I think it wouldn’t be fair to say the West doesn’t have a position on that — or that individual countries don’t.”
Can the G7 become a wider forum for democratic alliances?
Among Western leaders, trust in international forums such as the United Nations as a way to forge diplomatic alliances and mediate conflicts has waned — in part because of the standstill created by the veto powers of Russia and China on the one hand and the United States and its allies on the other.
Given Germany’s ambitions to use the G7 summit to discuss more equitable geopolitical relations, analysts question whether it could use its G7 presidency this year to try to create a broader democratic alliance beyond the rich countries.
“The idea that we could meet the richest of the rich countries and make decisions about the future direction of the global economy dates from another century,” said Lutz Weischer of Germanwatch, an advocacy group for global justice.
Are G7 countries at risk of setting aside climate ambitions?
Many climate analysts worry that Western leaders will fall back on their commitments, in part because of increased lobbying from the fossil fuel industry.
Lindsay Stringer, a professor at the University of York and co-chair of the environmental task force for Think7, a group of think tanks that proposes for the summit, is looking for concrete measures, in particular whether the G7 will increase funding for renewable energy and projects related to renewable energy. energy efficiency.
“We’re way behind where we should be,” she said.