Main takeaways from G7 (🧵)
1) we’re all spenders now: the economics were perhaps the least remarked upon bit of the summit but perhaps the most remarkable. The consensus in the West now is that spending and stimulus should continue and is necessary. There is no major...
1) we’re all spenders now: the economics were perhaps the least remarked upon bit of the summit but perhaps the most remarkable. The consensus in the West now is that spending and stimulus should continue and is necessary. There is no major...
...2009 style split between N America and Europe about fiscal or monetary policy. Remarkable turnaround from only a decade, only five or so years ago. All eyes now on inflation numbers but Biden believes that greater spending is necessary not only to arrest domestic economic...
...decline but also to address Western strategic imbalances with China.
2) The West has a leader again: There can be no doubt after this summit that the West, to a greater or lesser extent, has a leader again. Biden wants to fill those shoes in a way Trump did not, in some...
2) The West has a leader again: There can be no doubt after this summit that the West, to a greater or lesser extent, has a leader again. Biden wants to fill those shoes in a way Trump did not, in some...
...ways in a way Obama did not. He’s a fully paid up Atlanticist whose thinking on these issues was forged decades ago. In this respect he’s perhaps the last gasp of a certain type of American president rather than a new beginning. But he (perhaps cognisant of this) is...
...clearly determined to seize the strategic moment. I suspect he really believes what he says when he says the West is at an inflection point and it must prove it can do better vs authoritarian regimes. Question is what it amounts to and crucially whether Biden can...
...reconcile competing US/European approaches to China and Chinese power.
3) UK is Canada+: some of the realities of the new UK geopolitical position became clear at the summit. EU leaders working closely together, US keen to woo the bloc, UK to some extent on the outside...
3) UK is Canada+: some of the realities of the new UK geopolitical position became clear at the summit. EU leaders working closely together, US keen to woo the bloc, UK to some extent on the outside...
...in this respect UK was something akin to a Canada+ player, not aligned to a massive economic bloc, rich, powerful but sitting somewhat uncomfortably betwixt and between.
4) The Brexit settlement is not reached: if there were ever proof needed that a) there really isn’t any..
4) The Brexit settlement is not reached: if there were ever proof needed that a) there really isn’t any..
...finalised Brexit settlement yet b) the UK/EU relationship is now inherently unstable c) the lack of embedded settlement will continue to substantially affect Britain’s other strategic aims, then it was this summit. Britain keen to talk about other things (“sucked that...
...lemon dry”) but Northern Ireland meaning it cannot. Now much talk from UK ministers about how EU doesn’t appreciate NI is part of the UK. Two things a) adverts to the fact that the UK government seems not to have internalised that in some respects (as it has often been...
...in its unusual history) NI will be different to GB and will be treated as such as a result of the Protocol *they agreed to*. Many always said such an arrangements would be problematic and undesirable but the govt agreed to it and hailed it. To use the PM’s example it is not...
...like sending sausages from Paris to Toulouse because he signed a deal to say that led to a situation where that might not be the case. This matters not only for NI but also because absent the EU the UK needs other players to believe it will honour its agreements.
This is a running sore. There’s also a question as to how this “muscular unionism” with regards to NI adheres to UK govt’s essential commitment that it has no selfish strategic or economic interest in NI (fundamental to Good Friday).
But B) the EU is also getting a real sense of what it means to be a territorial player in the politics of Northern Ireland in a way that pre-Brexit it never was. And that, above all, requires a great deal of flexibility and nimbleness around legal order- something it is...
...not known for showing but which will be essential in order to ensure the peace.
5) The Vaccine deal is nowhere near enough: g7 has pledged 1 billion vaccines. WHO says 11 billion is needed. Gordon Brown (among others) has said this is a disaster and an “unforgivable...”
5) The Vaccine deal is nowhere near enough: g7 has pledged 1 billion vaccines. WHO says 11 billion is needed. Gordon Brown (among others) has said this is a disaster and an “unforgivable...”
moral failure.”
Antonio Guterres added: “We need more than that. We need a global vaccination plan. We need to act with a logic, with a sense of urgency, and with the priorities of a war economy, and we are still far from getting that."
Antonio Guterres added: “We need more than that. We need a global vaccination plan. We need to act with a logic, with a sense of urgency, and with the priorities of a war economy, and we are still far from getting that."
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