The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, stated on Tuesday that G-20 members have closed a draft joint statement that goes “in the right direction” to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine despite differing positions among its members.
“The fact of having reached an agreement at the delegation level is already a great achievement”Michel said at a press conference shortly before the start of the G-20 summit to be held between Tuesday and Wednesday on the Indonesian island of Bali.
The representative of the European Council described this appointment as “one of the hardest ever” due to the division between the countries of the group of twenty, especially between those in favor of condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine in forceful terms and the bloc formed by Moscow and Beijing, contrary to that idea.
Michel pointed out that since the Russian aggression there have been “a diplomatic battle” with “different opinions” on the subject that have been reflected, for example, in the UN General Assembly last March.
He added however that in the two days of the summit, the supporters of defending the Charter of the United Nations “must continue with the efforts to explain why we are absolutely convinced that this war started by Russia is extremely serious, especially for the Ukrainians.”
Asked about a possible change in position by China, hitherto reluctant to single out its partner Moscow for the war in Ukraine, Michel said that the EU and countries with similar sensitivities “they will use the G20 and bilateral meetings to convince all participating countries of the need to put more pressure on Russia”.
The rejection of war and the defense of international law “is something that should be shared by all the G20 countries,” he added.
If a joint declaration is agreed upon with a clear mention of the war in Ukraine, it would be the first from an international forum to do so in these terms since the beginning of the conflict.
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No G20 ministerial meeting since Russia invaded Ukraine in February this year has achieved a document agreed by the differences between the members when including allusions to the conflict and in what terms to do it.
The most recent draft of the declaration agreed between the delegations, according to Western diplomatic sources, refers to the situation in Ukraine as “war” and uses language similar to the UN General Assembly resolution approved last March against the Russian invasion.