Moment of truth for EU’s global outreach

Was the G20 summit this weekend a diplomatic success or a letdown? Beyond the answer to this question, the shift we saw there might also mean that, in the future, it might be harder to drive home Western points on Ukraine.

This weekend’s G20 talks in Delhi ended with a hard-won compromise declaration – and with the omission of any specific reference to Russia’s role as an aggressor in the war in Ukraine.

Compared to the language in Bali from November 2022, the final communiqué no longer included wording referring to a United Nations resolution that cited aggression by Russia and a call for withdrawal from Ukraine.

Combined with the fact that Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the host of next year’s G20 talks, said Russian President Vladimir Putin would not be arrested if he attended the summit in Rio de Janeiro, the picture looked rather grim.

Brazil is, after all, a signatory to the Rome Statute, which led to the founding of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has a pending arrest warrant against Putin.

There are now two strands of thought on this.

Five candidates have come forward for the post of president of the huge European Investment Bank, Belgian Finance Minister Vincent van Peteghem said on Friday, the first of several top European Union jobs which member governments will haggle over in the next 12 months.

The intensity of Storm Daniel, which hit Central Greece last week, has swept away the minimal work done to prevent flooding in Thessaly, three years after a cyclone laid waste to the same region, raising questions over preparedness.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is running out of time to shape a joint Franco-German legacy with French President Emmanuel Macron, with worries growing that his distanced approach to Paris will yield an era of stagnation in the relationship.

The European Union warned Russia on Monday that there would be “consequences” for those involved in staging elections in Ukrainian regions seized by the Kremlin.

Russian nationals can no longer cross into the EU with their cars, otherwise, their vehicles should be confiscated by the respective member state, it became clear on Monday after the European Commission was asked to explain a recent update of the EU sanctions policy.

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Views are the author’s

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic/Alice Taylor]