Brazil called for a “new globalization” at a meeting of G20 major financiers in Sao Paulo on Wednesday, emphasizing the fight against poverty while focusing particular attention on the impact of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza on the global economy.
• Also read: Westerners and Russia face off at the G20 summit in Brazil
“The global economic situation is full of challenges,” Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad, whose country has chaired the group since December, said at the start of the meeting.
“We must view climate change and poverty as truly global challenges that must be addressed through a new globalization” based on “social and environmental principles,” he said.
This close friend of left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva gave his opening speech via video conference because he tested positive for Covid-19.
However, the American Finance Minister Janet Yellen, the French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and the director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, are present in the Brazilian metropolis.
But ministers from China, India and Russia are missing from this two-day meeting, which comes a week after a meeting of foreign ministers in Rio de Janeiro.
For Brazil, one of the goals of the meeting is to obtain positive signals to advance the fight against inequality, with the aim of reducing the debt of poor countries or international taxation of the “super-rich”.
We must ensure that “the world’s billionaires pay their fair share of taxes,” stressed Mr. Haddad.
France wants to “accelerate” international negotiations to introduce a “minimum tax” for billionaires, Le Maire told reporters.
The first “G20 finance” meeting of the year serves primarily to prepare for the meeting of the group’s heads of state and government in November in Rio de Janeiro. Only this summit will make it possible to assess whether Latin America's leading power, which under the aegis of Lula is increasingly presenting itself as a champion of the “Global South”, has succeeded in making concrete progress.
Russian assets
If Brazil aims to ensure that the Sao Paulo conclave is not swallowed up by the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the Ukraine issue was already raised before the opening of this G20 summit.
On Wednesday morning, ministers or representatives of the G7 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, United States and the European Union) met in Sao Paulo to discuss aid to Ukraine two years after the Russian one Invasion.
The idea of helping Ukraine finance its war effort and reconstruction by seizing the interest on some $397 billion in Russian assets that the West has frozen since the Russian invasion is gaining ground.
Janet Yellen called on Tuesday for an “urgent” solution in this area, as Kiev pushes for greater Western support and hopes to release $60 billion in new financial aid to the American Congress.
However, the French minister reiterated that today itself there is “no legal basis for seizing Russian assets,” as some officials, including Ms. Yellen and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, have suggested in recent days.
“We will continue to work on it,” stressed Mr. Le Maire, emphasizing that “the G7 must act in accordance with the law.” For him, “the real emergency is that we in the United States manage to get this 60 billion dollars to release”.
Founded in 1999, the G20 represents more than 80% of global GDP, three-quarters of world trade and two-thirds of the world's population.
Today it has 21 members: the 19 largest economies in the world as well as the European Union and, for the first time this year, the African Union.