The G8 Summit Closing Press Conference
10/07/2009
The aid fund for Africa had risen from $15 to 20 billion over three years after the working sessions with the African countries, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi announced at the press conference concluding the L’Aquila G8 Summit. Food security and aid for the African countries had been the pivotal topics on the third and final day of the Summit, which had mustered 40 delegations around the same table.
Prime Minister Berlusconi emphasised that the agreement on the climate had been another “great success” scored by the L’Aquila Summit, highlighting the “major advances” that had come from countries like China and India, which had been prepared to give a number of concrete undertakings. Mr. Berlusconi also stressed the change of policy on the climate made by the new US Administration, which wanted to join forces with Europe to fight global warming.
The World Leaders assembled in L’Aquila had also sent out an “unambiguous message of confidence and hope to the public” in the face of a financial crisis that “has now blown itself out,” at least as far as its impact on the economy was concerned. The leaders had, the prime minister added, voiced their “displeasure at the resumption of international speculation,” calling on the international financial institutions to step in. The talk had then turned to the need to introduce a new code of universally accepted and universally applied laws and rules based on three principles: the right to own property, the value represented by ethics and morality and transparency.
Free trade was a necessity for getting out of the crisis, the prime minister stressed, referring to the stalemate in the Doha trade negotiations. The G8 had tasked Pascal Lamy, director of the WTO (World Trade Organization), with convening the ministers concerned in September with a view to taking the decisions on the subject to the Pittsburgh G20.
“Unanimity” had been expressed by the world leaders on the international issues as well, and on Iran in particular, on which a firm statement had emerged from the meetings, for the time being ruling out sanctions but setting “not too long a time frame for dialogue.” Mr. Berlusconi cited the fact that the G8’s decisions had been guided by the important conclusions reached at the US-Russian Federation summit.
Turning to the issues of world governance and the best configurations for exercising it, Mr. Berlusconi repeated that “all the formats, from G8 to G14 and G20, are valid,” but a broader format and the joint efforts of the major emerging economies could not but enhance the G8 countries’ effectiveness.
Documents:
Chair's Summary
