Italian prime minister Mario Draghi has appealed for global cooperation as the "only possible answer" to the world's severest threats as he hosts a summit of G20 global leaders in Rome overshadowed by worsening tensions between Britain and France.
The relationship between Paris had London has hit “turbulence”, British prime minister Boris Johnson acknowledged at the start of a gathering dedicated to forging agreement between the world’s largest economies on how to rein in climate change and increase vaccine equity.
The spiralling row between London and Paris over fishing licenses raised fears of disruption to trade that could hit Ireland after Mr Johnson warned he would do “what is necessary to protect British interests”, and French president Emmanuel Macron accused Britain of seeking to walk back on a signed agreement and questioned the country’s credibility.
The plummeting relations between the close neighbours and key defence allies threatens to cloud the start of the landmark Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, in which hosts Britain will attempt to wrest an elusive consensus on how to cut carbon emissions from a much more disparate group of roughly 200 countries.
Welcoming the G20 representatives in Rome, Mr Draghi said that even before the pandemic it had been a "difficult few years for the global community", a likely reference to the retreat from multilateralism by former United States president Donald Trump and Britain's fraught exit from the European Union.
“We faced protectionism, unilateralism, nationalism,” Mr Draghi said. “But the more we go with all our challenges, the more it is clear that multilateralism is the best answer to the problems we face today.”
“In many ways it’s the only possible answer,” he added. “From the pandemic, to climate change, to fair and equitable taxation, going it alone is simply not an option.”
The former European Central Bank chief urged his fellow leaders to do "all we can to overcome our differences" and address a yawning disparity in vaccine distribution that has seen rich countries achieve vaccination rates of 70 per cent and over while the poorest countries languish at only 3 per cent.
Two-day summit
At the two-day summit in Rome the 20 countries representing 80 per cent of global GDP including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa and Saudi Arabia will attempt to build momentum with climate pledges ahead of the COP26 conference.
They will also mark progress toward a global agreement on the taxation of multinationals that has seen Ireland abandon its long-time flagship rate of 12.5 per cent to match a global minimum of 15 per cent.
European Commission Chief Ursula von der Leyen said ahead of the summit that she would present proposals to bind the global agreement into EU law before the end of this year.
She also rejected British demands for the role of the European Court of Justice to be removed from the Northern Ireland Protocol - designed to preserve an open Border on the island - saying that the court was the only institution that could rule on EU law and that the bloc had already demonstrated flexibility “as much as possible”.
While Mr Johnson said ahead of the G20 that he wanted “to focus on the threat that humanity faces” and that Britain and France shared more in common than their differences, there was little sign of a resolution to the spat as he warned that London would not shy from legal action.
“We are a bit worried that France may be about to become in breach or is already in breach of the trade and cooperation agreement that we’ve struck,” Johnson said. France has also warned that it is prepared to take “targeted measures” against the UK if a resolution is not found to the dispute, which would threaten collateral damage to the Irish economy if it affects the overall UK-EU trade deal.
The rumbling dispute between London and its former EU partners has soured attempts to re-establish positive relations on areas of common interest such as defence, compounding the damage of a surprise announcement of a security cooperation agreement between Australia, Britain and the United States last month that caused Canberra to ditch a massive submarine deal with Paris.
US President Joe Biden, who has vowed to restore international cooperation after the damage of the combative Trump years, showered President Macron with warmth at a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Rome summit, admitting that the AUKUS announcement had been “clumsy” and the surprise unintentional.
Underlining his will to mend ties at a time when Washington is privately pressuring London to respect its signed commitments on the Northern Ireland Protocol, Biden said the US had “no older, no more loyal, no more decent ally than France” and that it would “always be there for them”.
