Here we go again.
When President Donald Trump said on May 30 that he was postponing the annual Group of Seven summit until September due to the coronavirus pandemic (it is the United States’ turn to host the annual G-7 meeting), he also announced that he wanted to invite Russia to rejoin the body of world leaders. “I don’t feel that as a G-7 it properly represents what’s going on in the world,” Mr. Trump said, adding, “It’s a very outdated group of countries.” He was referring to Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the U.S. Mr. Trump went on to suggest that Australia, India and South Korea also should be included as members; all of them by the way, are already members of the G-20.
Thankfully, both the United Kingdom and Canada reacted immediately and voiced their opposition to having Russia rejoin the exclusive group. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he would veto any plan to readmit Russia. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated that Russia’s “continued disrespect and flaunting of international rules and norms is why it remains outside of the G-7 and it will continue to remain out.”
Our readers will no doubt recall that Russia belonged to what was then called the G-8 in 1998-2014, but its membership was suspended after the invasion and annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. A joint statement said that the body would meet in the G-7 format “until Russia changes course and the environment comes back to where the G-8 is able to have a meaningful discussion.”
Back in June 2018, President Trump had said, “Whether you like it or not, and it may not be politically correct, but we have a world to run… They should let Russia come back in.” Last year in August, he again suggested that Russia should be readmitted to the Group of Seven. “I think it’s much more appropriate to have Russia in,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “I could certainly see it being the G-8 again.”
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel both weighed in last summer, saying they had not seen a solution or progress on the Ukraine issue. The British prime minister stated: “… given Russia’s provocations, not just in Ukraine but many other places, I must say I am very much with Chancellor Merkel in thinking that the case has yet to be made out for Russia to return to the G-7.” Prime Minister Johnson also pointed to the Cold War-era-style poisonings of the Skripals in Salisbury, England.
So, what’s changed? Nothing. Back in August 2019 President Volodymyr Zelenskyy quite correctly wrote: “Since March 2014, when Russia was suspended from the G-8 nothing has changed. The Ukrainian Crimea is still occupied, the Ukrainian Donbas is still suffering from the war.…” Here we are, a year later, and President Zelenskyy’s comments remain pertinent.
Russia does not deserve an invitation to the G-7. After all, as the BBC points out, “The group regards itself as ‘a community of values,’ with freedom and human rights, democracy and the rule of law, and prosperity and sustainable development as its key principles.” Russia does not belong in this group of the world’s leading players. Period.