Brazil called for a “new globalization” on Wednesday during a meeting of the G20 big financiers in Sao Paulo, insisting on the fight against poverty while attention is mainly focused on the impact of the wars in Ukraine and in Gaza on the global economy.
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“The global economic situation is full of challenges,” said Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad, whose country has chaired the group since December, opening the meeting.
“We must take into account climate change and poverty as truly global challenges, which must be faced through a new globalization” based on “social and environmental principles,” he said.
This close friend of left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva delivered his opening speech by videoconference, because he tested positive for Covid-19.
In the Brazilian megalopolis, however, the American Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, the French Minister of Finance, Bruno Le Maire, and the director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, are present.
But the ministers of China, India and Russia are absent from this two-day meeting, which takes place a week after a meeting of foreign ministers in Rio de Janeiro.
For Brazil, one of the objectives of the meeting will be to obtain positive signals to advance the fight against inequalities, with the aim of reducing the debt of poor countries or international taxation of “super rich”.
We must ensure that “the world’s billionaires pay their fair tax contribution,” underlined Mr. Haddad.
France wants to “accelerate” international negotiations with a view to establishing a “minimum tax” on billionaires, Mr. Le Maire told journalists.
The first “G20 Finance” meeting of the year mainly serves to prepare the ground for the meeting of the group’s heads of state and government in November in Rio de Janeiro. It is this summit which will make it possible to judge whether the leading power in Latin America, which under the aegis of Lula increasingly poses as champion of the “Global South”, has succeeded in making concrete progress.
Russian assets
If Brazil strives to ensure that the Sao Paulo conclave is not swallowed up by the wars in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip, the Ukrainian question was raised even before the opening of this G20.
Wednesday morning in Sao Paulo, the ministers or representatives of the G7 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, United States, as well as the European Union), met to discuss the aid to Ukraine, two years after the Russian invasion.
The idea of helping Ukraine finance its war effort and its reconstruction by seizing the interest generated by some $397 billion in Russian assets frozen by the West since the Russian invasion is gaining ground.
Janet Yellen called on Tuesday for an “urgent” solution in this area, while kyiv urges greater Western support and hopes for the release of new financial aid of 60 billion dollars to the American Congress.
But the French minister reiterated that there is today “no legal basis to seize Russian assets” themselves, as some officials, including Ms. Yellen and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, have proposed. the last days.
“We will continue to work on it,” underlined Mr. Le Maire, emphasizing that “the G7 must act in accordance with the law.” For him, “the real emergency is that in the United States we manage to release these 60 billion dollars”.
Founded in 1999, the G20 represents more than 80% of global GDP, three-quarters of global trade and two-thirds of the world’s population.
Today it has 21 members: the 19 largest economies on the planet, as well as the European Union and, for the first time this year, the African Union.