This Saturday, July 8, the G20 summit that took place in the German city of Hamburg was ended, a summit marked by the dissent of the US government, having opposite positions with the rest of powers that make up the group, as well as for the protests in which we showed a rejection of the guidelines set by the forum.
During this edition of the G20 something happened that breaks with the habitual dynamics of the past editions: one of the main impellers of the forum broke with already customary total consensus among the powers. The US maintained the position on the Paris Agreement that had already expressed last June and will not ratify the climate agreement. The other point that kept Trump away from the rest of the leaders was with respect to the liberalization of trade. Thus both points forced to specify details in the conclusions of the summit (something unusual). These include the possibility of taking “protectionist” measures in trade in case of unfair competition by the states, thus opening the possibility of undertaking a revision of the rules set by the World Trade Organization system. Regarding the Paris Agreement it is specified that only the United States is outside its ratification.
The fifteen pages of the final resolution of the forum also include a declaration of intentions on issues such as migration, the need to strengthen the education of workers, the defense of a “modern and fair” financial system, the fight against corruption and Tax fraud, global financing of terrorism, discrimination against women, combating hunger in African countries and other issues of various kinds. But the document does not include concrete measures which makes it wet paper, since states can even back down from what has been agreed, such is the case of Turkey, which paralyzed the ratification of the Paris Agreement until it is guaranteed that it will be free of the sanctions that the agreement implies.
On the other hand, before and during the summit, we, the different social organizations and people involved in the counter-summit, make it clear to the G20 formants, through the different actions and mobilizations, that we reject the direction marked by the Neoliberal policies. The elites’ response was clear at a summit where they gave no voice to civil society and where they had to shield the city of Hamburg with more than 20,000 agents equipped with riot gear and detention centers that were already enabled for months before the beginning of the summit. The agents faced permanent demonstrators, leaving more than 1,000 injured, 143 arrests and 122 provisional arrests. In response to this situation, the city today had a demonstration in front of the Hamburg prison to reject the repression suffered by demonstrators throughout the entire counter-summit.
Throughout the second day of G20 talks, various organizations participated in a mobilization organized in more than 15 thematic blocks (climate groups, migrants, unions…), in which more than 100,000 demonstrators overflowed the Hanseatic city. The screams of slogans such as “We say it loud, we say it clear, refugees are welcome here!” or “No G20”, as well as the reference to other previous counter-summits (such as Genoa in 2001 with the constant presence of Carlo Giuliani in various spaces and banners) invaded a mobilization that traveled the streets of Hamburg under the motto “Solidarity without borders instead of G20” in its main banner.
But if something was constant throughout the whole process during these days of struggle was, in addition to the clear rejection of the policies carried out by the main economic powers of the world, the strengthening of an international line of work where it starts To weave new ties, innovates in the repertoire of social response and finds original ways of social, economic, political and environmental construction alternatives to the neoliberal model imposed.
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