Politics

Scholz: G7 will send ‘clear signal of unity’ to Russia

Elmau, Germany, Jun 26 (EFE).- G7 leaders on Sunday launched the group’s annual summit in southern Germany with the war in Ukraine, food insecurity and the looming economic crisis dominating the agenda.

The first day of the G7 summit, which brings together the leaders of the world’s most advanced economies, started with a bilateral meeting between German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who is hosting the summit in Elmau in the Bavarian Alps, with United States president Joe Biden.

Soon after the first joint session with Canada, France, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom kicked off with food insecurity and the global economic fallout triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on the agenda.

“There are falling growth rates in some countries, rising inflation, shortages of raw materials and disruption of supply chains,” Scholz told reporters after the first working session.

“These are all not small challenges that we are facing … but I am very, very, very confident that we will succeed in sending a very clear signal of unity and decisive action from this summit,” the German chancellor added.

Scholz said that he trusted in the ability of the G7 to coordinate efforts to combat the economic crisis of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

He added that the Elmau summit would send a very clear and determined message in this regard.

The G7 summit host said that promoting investment and unblocking supply chains were both necessary solutions to the problems the global economy was facing.

At Biden’s bilateral meeting with Scholz, the American president praised Germany’s recent decision to boost military spending.

“Putin has been counting on, from the beginning, that somehow NATO would — and the G7 would splinter. And — but we haven’t, and we’re not going to,” Biden said at the joint presser.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is expected to join the Sunday meeting remotely as Russia ramped up attacks on Kyiv.

In a statement before the G7, Scholz stressed the importance of not letting other pressing matters fall through the cracks.

“Many of the goals we set ourselves at the beginning of the year have become even more pressing as a result of the change in the global situation,” he said.

Germany set itself the goal of ‘Progress towards an equitable world’ when it took over the G7 presidency at the beginning of the year, and laid out five action points to guide the goal: a sustainable planet, economic stability and transformation, healthy lives, a better future and stronger together. EFE

gc-jam-ch/smq

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