Emad Mekay
WASHINGTON, Jul 17 2006 (IPS) – Leaders of the eight most industrialised nations will gather this weekend in St. Petersburg, Russia with energy security, the critical state of global trade talks, infectious diseases, education and other vital issues for the world economy on their agenda.
Leaders of Russia, France, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Japan, the United States and Canada will meet on Monday, Jul. 17 to forge a common policy on those issues but many experts say no major decisions are expected out of the high-profile meeting.
The Group of Eight (G8), which gathers annually, will meet this time with oil prices having hit new highs and Europe, which is dependent for 25 percent of its gas imports on Moscow, nervous about a newly assertive and energy-rich Russia under President Vladimir Putin.
Energy security is supposed to be the leading theme of the G8 summit, said Robert Ebel of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington.
Experts say that Russia is unlikely to cave in to European demands during the meeting to allow third-party access to their pipelines, as the Europeans would like.
So I wonder what s going to happen at the summit that will make the headlines in terms of energy security, Ebel said. My guess is not much not much.
The United States and Europe, backed by their own powerful private sector companies, want greater investments in nuclear energy. But non-governmental organisations and consumer safety advocates say the solution to the energy crunch is not in dangerous nuclear power but in alternative, clean sources and less consumption in the West.
Business groups, on the other hand, are prodding the leaders to tap the skills of the world business community towards energy security and to create new frameworks for massive investments needed to meet future energy demand.
Another major issue on the economic side is the stalled multilateral World Trade Organisation (WTO) trade talks, named the Doha round.
Business groups, the most influential pressure lobby behind the G8 countries, say that leaders should summon up firm political leadership to bring the Doha trade talks to a successful conclusion meaning committing developing nations to further open up their markets for Western goods and services.
The chorus demanding a breakthrough in the run up to the meetings includes international financial institutions like the World Bank, whose ideological orientation favours an unfettered climate for international corporations and businesses, and which has increased its pressure for a conclusion on the eve of the meeting.
On Tuesday, World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz issued a heated plea for the leaders of the G8 to work out the details of a trade deal during their meeting.
I urge all participants in the Jul. 17 meeting to come prepared to compromise and commit to success, he said in a letter to the G8 leaders and to the heads of five other nations Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa that have been instrumental in blocking an agreement that they see as favouring rich nations.
But some analysts were still sceptical of an agreement during the G8 summit, especially after the failure of top trade diplomats in this mission during their latest meeting in Geneva last week.
Research fellow Kimberly Elliott of the Centre for Global Development says that given the current make-up of the meeting, which Russia had been hoping to use to push its bid for membership in the World Trade Organisation, along with the lack of political will on the part of the rich nations, trade concerns of developing nations will almost certainly take a backseat.
In a situation like that, and with none of the big emerging market countries included in the G8, it s hard to imagine serious attention to developing country trade concerns, said the CGD web post.
Russia, as the host country, also chose to place other issues on the agenda, including infectious diseases and education, the first time it has been on the summit agenda.
With some 100 million primary school age children out of school, the world is still far from achieving Nations Millennium Development Goals for education, which call for increased enrolment by 2015.
Education officials from the group met in Moscow this week.
The group has also endorsed the concept of a pilot Advance Market Commitments for vaccines, where it hopes to commit a specific amount of money to purchase vaccines to target diseases such as TB, HIV, malaria, pneumonia and meningitis, which combined kill millions of people every year.
But Owen Barder, another expert with CGD, doubted on a post on the organisation s site entitled Does the G8 Suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder? whether G8 leaders even remember that in their last summit in Gleneagles, Scotland last year, they asked their finance ministers to investigate and come back with a solid proposal on this health issue.
Will the G8 leaders meeting in St. Petersburg finally move forward with an advance market commitment for vaccines? he asked.
Signs are not very encouraging, he added.
On the political side, the countries are likely to discuss Western concern over what they perceive as lack of democracy in Russia and the increasing tension about security issues like, Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Analysts do not expect major decisions on the political side either.
I don t think this is going to be a very dramatic summit, said Ambassador Richard McCormack, former U.S. undersecretary of state for economic affairs.
But I am always prepared to be pleasantly surprised because when you get the most powerful leaders of eight most powerful countries you have the potential for unexpected decisions and sometimes these decisions can be positive.
