This year’s G20 Summit over Nov. 18-19, which Brazil hosted in Rio de Janeiro, has ended, and not without leaving the unipolar Atlanticists in a tizzy over how they are increasingly losing control over the political narrative globally. Particularly upsetting for the representatives from the U.S., France, and Germany was the decision by G20 host Brazilian President Lula da Silva, to appease their demands to include their “Ukraine issues” into the Final Communiqué. The communiqué is generally issued at the end of the G20 meeting, but Lula used the opportunity just after the plenary session, when the representatives of the U.S., France, and Germany were not in the hall, to release the communiqué.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Nov. 19 he regretted that the G20 communiqué did not underscore Russia’s responsibility in starting the Ukraine war, particularly on the 1,000th day of its alleged full-scale invasion. “It is too little when the G20 cannot find the words to make it clear Russia is responsible,” he said at the end of the summit. French President Emmanuel Macron likewise piped up. “The communiqué was closed by President Lula. It fell short of the position we could have had,” Macron told reporters on Monday night, Nov. 18, complaining that the text would have benefitted from being more explicit on the war.
