After the Hamburg riot summit in 2017, everything should go smoothly for host Scholz this time. The agenda for the G7 meeting in Elmau is packed to the brim: the Ukraine war, the threat of famine and a global energy crisis – the chancellor has a lot to do if he wants to keep the reins in his hands.
This summit will not fail because of the scenery: A castle converted into a five-star luxury hotel at the foot of the almost 3000 meter high Wetterstein mountains, embedded in humpback meadows that have their origins in the last ice age. The topics: the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, the fear of a dramatic escalation of the energy crisis, increasing famine in regions such as East Africa and global warming, which has so far hardly slowed down, which can be seen particularly impressively in the glaciers of the Alps. It will be a crisis summit in the Alpine idyll: the packaging and content of the G7 summit of Western economic powers don’t really want to go together.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz will have to come to terms with this contradiction when he has heads of state and government from eleven countries at the Bavarian Schloss Elmau from Saturday evening to Tuesday afternoon. As a newcomer to the group of heads of Western economic powers, the SPD politician will pull the strings. In addition to the G7 members USA, Great Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Japan, Scholz invited five other democracies: India, Indonesia, South Africa, Senegal and Argentina.
Elmau is already the second stage of an eight-day summit marathon that began with the EU summit in Brussels and will end next week with the NATO summit in Madrid. The omens for Elmau are favourable. Brussels has brought a historic decision, the momentum of which Scholz can bring to the Alps. Ukraine and Moldova are now EU accession candidates. The decision went relatively smoothly.
Scholz contributed to this by speaking out in favor of it last week in Kyiv together with French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi. “The European Union said yes 27 times yesterday,” emphasized the Chancellor. He would also like to see such a signal of unity for Elmau. These are the topics covered:
The country attacked by Russia should be supported as long as it is necessary. Scholz says that again and again, meaning: military, humanitarian and financial. In his government statement, he called for a “Marshall Plan” for the reconstruction of war-ravaged Ukraine. Between 1948 and 1952, the USA used such a plan to help Germany and other European countries get back on their feet after six years of war. Scholz now wants to convene an expert conference to deal with how to organize investments in Ukraine. Further sanctions against Russia could also be an issue. However, the scope is largely exhausted.
Originally intended as a top topic, climate protection has slipped into the second place in the course of the war. Scholz wants to promote his idea of ??the climate club, which dates back to his time as finance minister: This should enable close coordination of climate protection measures and give the implementation of the Paris climate protection agreement an additional boost internationally.
Scholz wants to strengthen international cooperation, network democracies more, but at the same time avoid the formation of blocs between the West and authoritarian states such as Russia and China. That’s why he invited states to Elmau that are democracies but have not taken a clear position on the Ukraine war. India, South Africa and Senegal abstained in the UN Security Council vote condemning the war. The dialogue with these states is important to Scholz. “Our understanding of democracy falls short if we only focus on the classic West,” he says.
Experts warn of the worst famine since World War II as a result of the Ukraine war. The G7 will seek ways to unblock Ukraine’s grain exports across the Black Sea. The efforts of UN Secretary-General António Guterres have so far not been successful.
In addition to the political results, something else is important for Scholz: that the protests against the summit do not escalate like they did at the 2017 G20 summit in Hamburg. At that time, Scholz, as Hamburg’s mayor, was a kind of co-host alongside Chancellor Angela Merkel – and was surprised by the willingness of many demonstrators to use violence. “There will be people who will be surprised on July 9th (the day after the summit) that the summit is already over,” said Scholz before the summit.
The summit then descended into unprecedented riots, with cars burning and shops looted. That shouldn’t happen again this time. 18,000 police officers are on duty. The decisive day will probably be Saturday, when 20,000 participants are expected to take part in a large demonstration in Munich. Scholz says the security forces are “very carefully” prepared for everything.
