Summit without consensus declaration would have been death sentence for G20

Speaking at a press briefing, Ackermann said that the Delhi Declaration was a “fabulous text” and that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was “very satisfied” with the outcomes of the recently concluded summit.

However, many in the Western world have taken a different view. It has been argued that the text of the G20 New Delhi Declaration represented a significant concession to Russia, since the country was not directly condemned for its invasion of Ukraine in the text. In 2022, the Bali Declaration issued under Indonesia’s G20 presidency had said that “most members” condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry, too, voiced its dissatisfaction with the Delhi Declaration, while Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov thanked India and emerging economies for preventing attempts to “Ukrainise” the G20 agenda. Ackermann pushed back against the idea that the Delhi Declaration represented a victory for Russia.

“Certainly Russia has not been mentioned as a country, but I would say it has Russia written all over it,” said Ackermann, pointing to three paragraphs in the Delhi Declaration that he says refer directly to Russia.

Ackermann acknowledged that the statement would have looked different if authored by Western countries. He also said that the language on climate change was “satisfactory”, even if it was not all that may have been hoped for.

“But when you see that you have to compromise in this very heterogeneous group of countries, it’s a fabulous text,” he said of the declaration.

Ackermann also said that negotiations confirmed the isolation of Russia since the negotiating dynamics were, in his words, 18 countries arrayed against two: Russia and China.

Updated: 12 Sep 2023, 06:55 PM IST