G7 Summit would be More Effective with Russia's Participation

• 06.09.2015, 17:42
•  Europe,  America,  World

The G7 summit of "Great Seven" countries including Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, USA, Canada and Japan, which this time was held in Bavaria, Germany, is considered to be a mere repetition of last year's Brussels Summit with almost the same issues on the agenda to be discussed.

The main focus of the summit was again the Ukrainian crisis and the sanctions against Russia, who once used to participate in "G8" Summit from which it was excluded, because of the disagreements with European Union, and the name of the summit correspondingly was changed into "G7". So the "Great Seven" countries once again reiterated their intention to keep sanctions against Russia until the latter implements properly all the Minsk agreements.  At the same time, all the seven stood for the peaceful resolution of the Ukrainian conflict, with the White House spokesman Josh Ernest to mention in his turn that Washington intends to avoid any further escalation of the conflict by stopping to give any weapon to Kiev.

In addition to the Ukrainian crisis,  there was also the issue of Greece on the summit agenda. In this regard, the Great Seven leaders did not make any new statement. They just once again stressed that Athens will continue to receive financial aid in case it submits a new plan for further reforms.

The summit participants also discussed the British possible withdrawal from the EU. US President Barack Obama pointed to Britain the importance of its staying in the EU both for Europe and the whole world in general.

The Great Seven countries also discussed the EU-US talks on the free trade zone, stressing the importance of speeding the negotiations concerning this issue.

Among the topics discussed were also the ways of countering terrorism, the climate issues, health development, the role of women in development policy, etc.  A special attention was also paid to the creation of a special fund to combat epidemic diseases associated with the spread of Ebola.

Like the latest Summit held in Brussels, this Bavarian one also showed that currently it is just impossible to face the global challenges without the full participation of world powers - in this case, without Russia. There were no practical suggestions made during the summit on Russia-West relations, the Ukrainian crisis, the fight against terrorism, the strengthening of international security. The participating sides just once again reaffirmed all the things that were regularly talked about long before the very Bavarian Summit.