Actually, the G-7 foreign ministers’ meeting in Weißenhaus should have been the first under the German presidency. Because of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, department head Annalena Baerbock led the seventh meeting with her colleagues on the Baltic Sea this year. The coalition of the major western industrialized countries has become an important forum for coordinating support for Kyiv, sanctions against Russia, an attempt to deal with the global aftermath of the war unleashed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In Weißenhaus, too, the situation in Ukraine dominated the agenda for a day and a half. Baerbock reiterated that the G7 “will never recognize border changes intended to be enforced by force.” On Saturday, the ministers approved their own 15-point declaration, which only deals with the Russian war against Ukraine. They call on Russia to stop attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure, especially rail lines and ports, and to allow at least 25 million tons of grain to be exported. These are stored in the ports and with the producers, but cannot be exported because of the Russian naval blockade.
Baerbock accuses Putin of waging a grain war
In the final press conference on Saturday, Baerbock accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of deliberately expanding his aggression against Ukraine to include a “grain war, a grain war against many countries in the world”, especially in Africa. This is not collateral damage from the war, but “a deliberately used means” of fueling new crises and weakening the cohesion of the world community against Russia’s war.
To address the looming supply crisis in many parts of the world, the G7 are launching a Global Food Security Alliance, to be officially launched at a meeting of development aid ministers. Russia gives the impression that Western sanctions, and not the Russian blockade, are responsible for the increased prices and shortages, according to participants – and Moscow is “quite successful” in doing so.
“Targeted disinformation campaigns,” Baerebock called what needs to be counteracted. There are no sanctions against grain, medicine or humanitarian aid, she clarified. “Grain does not come into the world because Russia has chosen the strategy of blocking it.” In many countries of the Global South, however, the G7 could not automatically count on a leap of faith; the western industrialized countries would have to earn trust through their actions. The fight against this global crisis “is going to be a long-distance race,” said Baerbock.
In contrast to the many ad hoc meetings before, the ministers also found time to exchange ideas in a confidential setting. Facilitating such informal discussions about strategic issues was the original idea behind the G7 – its value is now showing as Putin wants to tear down the rules-based international order that had long been believed to be a given and has found a willing ally in China for his campaign against liberal democracy.
China, Covid, climate change: The Russian war is also affecting the other issues that concern the world
However, the further developments of the war played into thematically different debates again and again on Friday afternoon and at the end on Saturday morning. The relationship with China? It will also largely depend on how state and party leader Xi Jinping continues to react to Russian aggression.
The final declaration called on Beijing not to support Russia’s war and not to undermine Western sanctions. The climate change? Exacerbating the food crisis caused by Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports on the Black and Azov Seas. Fighting the Covid-19 pandemic and vaccinating hundreds of millions of people in developing countries? A question of the credibility of western democracies.
With the exception of Yoshimasa Hayashi from Japan, the other foreign ministers will be seeing each other again on Saturday evening at a dinner in Berlin to kick off the informal meeting of foreign ministers of the 30 NATO countries. There, too, the focus will be on the Russian attack on Ukraine – and Finland’s planned entry into the Western Defense Alliance, which Sweden, which has also been neutral up to now, could join as early as next week.
Between the lines: criticism of Erdoğan
Canada’s Foreign Minister Melanie Jolie said in Weissenhaus that accession must come quickly. A consensus must be reached for this – a reference to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s reservations about NATO membership of the two Scandinavian countries. He compared them to “guesthouses for terrorists” because supporters of the Gülen movement and the Kurdish Workers’ Party PKK, which Turkey has classified as a terrorist organization, stay there.
Turkey has so far never made any such reservations in internal NATO meetings, according to diplomatic circles. Finland’s Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto and his colleague from Sweden, Ann Linde, are taking part in the NATO deliberations, which are scheduled to last until Sunday afternoon. And G-7 hostess Baerbock was also irritated and pointed out her reaction against Erdoğan: Every democratic country should be happy that democracies with their own strong defense capabilities would join an alliance.