G20 Summit: Why a joint declaration is unlikely

We are just days away from the G20 Summit in New Delhi (9 and 10 September) which will see world leaders gather for the important meet. Most of the leaders of the G20 countries have confirmed their participation – Russia’s Vladimir Putin has announced that he would be skipping the meet while questions persist over Chinese president Xi Jinping’s presence. Ahead of the highly-guarded meeting in New Delhi, G20 sherpas have gathered in Haryana’s Nuh, where violence had broken out in late July, and are making a last-minute attempt to reach a consensus over the proposed “Delhi Declaration” to be adopted at the summit. The Sherpas’ meet, which began on 3 September (Sunday) and run until 7 September (Thursday), will their last meeting before the leaders meet and will be an attempt to iron out differences over the two paragraphs of the proposed “Delhi Declaration”. There’s a fear that the G20 summit may also end without a joint declaration as Russia and the West continue to spar over the Ukraine war among other issues. Race for joint declaration The G20 Sherpas are racing against time to hammer out the final declaration that will be adopted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other leaders of G20 nations over the weekend. However, they face a tough challenge to create consensus. The main issue is the Ukraine war with the Western countries and Russia not being able to see eye to eye on the matter. In fact, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov , who will represent Moscow at the meet, said that Russia will block any summit Declaration that doesn’t reflect Moscow’s views on Ukraine and other crises. “There will be no general Declaration on behalf of all members if our position is not reflected,” Lavrov was quoted as telling Reuters. He added that western countries were eroding international institutions by promoting their own interests and said if the G20 meeting is not able to reach a consensus, the G20 president might consider releasing a chair summary. “Another option is to adopt a document that focuses on specific decisions in the sphere of G20 competences, and let everyone say the rest on their own behalf,” he said. After Lavrov, Russian ambassador to India Denis Alipov also reiterated that there was no consensus on the text related to the Ukraine war. And it’s not just Russia that is a hurdle to having a joint declaration. Christina Segal-Knowles, the US soux sherpa, said the text referring to the Ukraine crisis doesn’t have to be exactly the same as that used in the Bali leaders’ declaration of 2022. “The US position is that we need to find a way, as the G20, to be able to talk about the major issues affecting the global economy. The war in Ukraine is certainly a major issue that’s affecting the global economy… We need to be able to talk about that for the G20 to remain a credible institution,” she was quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times. Even Germany has said that it will not sign a joint statement that ignores Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Germany’s G20 sherpa Jorg Kukies in an interview to The Mint said that Germany did not agree with China’s position that the Ukrainse war does not belong in an economic grouping like the G20. [caption id=“attachment_13075262” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] If a joint declaration is not agreed upon, this will be the first time that it has happened in the history of the G20 summit – since its inception in 1999. PTI[/caption] No joint communiqué Interestingly, none of the G20 ministerial meetings held until now have been able to issue a single Joint Communiqué thus far. Instead India has been forced to issue a series of “Chairman’s Summary and Outcomes Documents” at the various meetings. This is because Russia and the West have been disagreeing on two paragraphs of the Bali Declaration that have been brought forth to the Delhi Declaration. For the unaware, at the end of the 17th G20 Summit held in Indonesia in November of 2022, the leaders had signed off on the Bali Declaration in which most members “strongly condemned the war in Ukraine” while others had different views and “different assessments of the situation and sanctions”. However, Russia and China are now opposing the text in the declaration, but for different reasons. The Hindu reports that Russia says the Russia says the language at Bali no longer holds true as it does not include increased US and European military support to Ukraine, or the increased sanctions against Russia that followed. China has said that it doesn’t believe the G-20, essentially an economic forum, should discuss “geopolitical issues” as it hasn’t in the past two decades, indicating the Bali statement was an exception. [caption id=“attachment_13075382” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, RBI governor Shaktikanta Das, among others at the G20 Finance Ministers’ Meet in Bengaluru back in February. Image Courtesy: @g20org/Twitter[/caption] In July after the G20 finance ministers’ meet concluded, India only released a chair’s summary and outcome document. Speaking after the meet, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said there was no consensus “because we still don’t have a common language on the Russia-Ukraine war”.

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Even External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in June had said that a “common landing point” for a final G20 declaration was challenging. “There are differences of opinion even about what was agreed to in Bali last year. So how do we handle it? It’s very hard for me. I mean, you know, diplomats are still working at it. So I don’t want to predict. I don’t want to sort of, in a way, give too much details. I mean, I accept your point that it’s a challenge. But, you know, diplomacy is a business for optimistic people. So I think it’s something that we would look at,” he had said, as per a report in The Wire. Significance of a joint declaration If the G20 Summit in New Delhi ends without a joint declaration, it will be a first for the grouping since its inception in 1999 . As Derek J Grossman, a senior defence analyst at the Rand Corporation, said on X, “India’s upcoming G20 summit is likely to go down as the first ever not to issue a joint statement. If this comes to pass, then it won’t be New Delhi’s fault. The reality is that forces beyond India’s control are at play.” Some experts believe that a lack of a joint declaration could raise questions about the purpose of the grouping and if it holds any relevance in today’s age. Interestingly, in 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea, the G20 summit in Brisbane had managed to issue a joint declaration without the mention of the conflict. Surprisingly, it also had a ‘family photo’ with all the leaders including Russian president Vladimir Putin. With inputs from agencies