The United States and the United Kingdom want to advance sanctions against Moscow for the invasion of Ukraine by prohibiting imports of Russian gold.
Both delegations have announced that they have made this proposal to the leaders of the G-7 who are meeting in the castle of Elmau, in southern Germany.
Joe Biden, who arrived last night at this luxurious spot in the Bavarian Alps, announced on his Twitter account that this measure aims to undermine one of the Kremlin's largest sources of income.
“Together with the G-7 we will announce that we are banning the import of Russian gold, a major export that generates tens of billions of dollars for Russia,” the US president wrote.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson shares that view.
"The measures we have announced today will directly affect the Russian oligarchs and strike at the heart of Putin's war machine," the
premier
said .
“We need to deprive the Putin regime of its funding.
The UK and our allies are doing just that."
London plays a prominent role in the international gold trade, so the United Kingdom believes that the parallel action with the United States, to which Japan and Canada are also joining for the time being, will have a global scope that will allow this raw material to be excluded from formal international markets.
Russia is the world's third largest producer of gold, accounting for approximately 5% of its exports.
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Elmau Castle is unlikely to return to the idyllic images of two world leaders — then Angela Merkel and Barack Obama — casually chatting over mugs of beer and white sausages in a pastoral setting.
Many things have changed since that 2015 in which the German chancellor received the American and the other members of the G-7 in the Bavarian Alps.
For starters, a war in Europe.
The images of this summit are much more austere;
there is no desire for folklore.
Already then, Vladimir Putin's Russia, which was beginning to be isolated internationally after the annexation of Crimea, had fallen out of the group.
Now about to enter
in the fifth month
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the leaders of the seven largest economies of the industrialized democracies are preparing to show Putin and the rest of the world unity and coordination in helping kyiv.
The war in Ukraine will dominate the discussions.
The heads of the G-7 (the United States, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Canada) plus the European Union will discuss whether sanctions are working and what else they can do to increase pressure on Russia.
After a successful initial phase in which, through consistent coordinated action, Western democracies managed to apply strong economic pressure on Russia and support a positive military reaction from Ukraine, the picture now seems more complex.
The President of France, Emmanuel Macron (on the left), and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, before meeting at Elmau Castle, this Sunday. POOL (REUTERS)
Russia seems to have taken the economic hit and continues to earn a large income from the sale of fossil fuels thanks to high prices and entrenched sales to China and India.
On the ground, the Kremlin has reorganized itself, and after initial debacles it is now making slow but steady progress in eastern Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the repercussions of the conflict are strongly shaking other countries, with serious problems in the energy sector, a general rise in prices and food shortages.
Precisely these global crises triggered by the armed conflict figure very high on Elmau's agenda.
The energy company is causing prices never seen before that shake the ghost of the oil crisis of the seventies.
Europe could be on the verge of feared energy rationing after Putin has cut gas supplies to countries that are still highly dependent, such as Germany, the host of the event, or Italy.
Most of the heads of state and government have arrived in Elmau throughout Sunday morning, although the US president, Joe Biden, did so on Saturday night, just after the French president, Emmanuel Macron.
Biden's meeting with Scholz was the first bilateral meeting of the appointment.
Both leaders have walked around the Elmau castle while preparing their speeches in the different sessions that will be held until Tuesday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is scheduled to speak virtually on Monday.
As a prelude to this G-7, Berlin held an international conference on the world food crisis on Friday.
Representatives of 50 countries called on Moscow to open ports and allow the export of grain held by Russia in Ukraine.
The conflict has caused a spike in food prices that threatens to add tens of millions to the ranks of the hungry.
It is estimated that there are more than 25 million tons of cereals available in Ukraine, one of the world's breadbaskets, but that they cannot be exported due to the Russian blockade of the Black Sea.
The G-7 leaders will discuss possible outlets for these cereals and ways to alleviate the hunger crisis.
Welcome committee, dressed in typical Bavarian costumes, to the leaders of the G7 at the Munich airport, on Saturday.
RONALD WITTEK (EFE)
The effect of the war on the world economy is another concern at Elmau.
"Russia's brutal war against Ukraine also has repercussions for us," German Chancellor Olaf Scholz introduced this Saturday in a video message with which he has begun to communicate more informally on social networks.
“A lot of the things we buy have become more expensive.
Food, but especially energy prices.
We notice it at the gas station, when we have to pay the heating bill.
[...] everything is much more expensive than a year ago”.
The inflation that is raging in the G-7 countries (except Japan) is a challenge that Scholz wants to address with his international partners.
“We can only get through this together,” he says on the recording.
The Elmau castle, an exclusive five-star hotel shielded for days by the security forces, will also host the leaders of five countries invited by Germany, which holds the rotating presidency of the G-7 this 2022. Scholz wants to attract India, Indonesia, Senegal, South Africa and Argentina to its "climate club" project, an initiative aimed at combating the climate crisis to which it hopes that nations from all over the world will voluntarily adhere.
The climate club was the chancellor's top priority when the German presidency of the G7 began.
Berlin does not want the war to overshadow the greatest challenge facing humanity, government sources stressed this week in Berlin.
The members of the club will commit to advancing in the decarbonization of their economies.
Protests against the G-7 this Saturday in Munich.
Matthias Schrader (AP)
Given the impossibility of approaching many kilometers from the castle, the protests against the G-7 were concentrated this Saturday in the Bavarian capital, Munich.
Thousands of demonstrators —4,000, according to the Police;
6,000, according to the organizers, marched through the city to demand more action from world leaders against the climate emergency.
The convening environmental organizations had a greater presence on the street;
They had calculated that some 20,000 would join the protest motto: "Climate crisis, extinction of species, inequalities: equity is something else!"
The German Police has deployed thousands of agents both in Munich and around the Elmau castle, just over a hundred kilometers from the Bavarian capital, a tourist region on the border with Austria.
The German authorities want by all means to prevent something remotely similar to the G-20 riots in Hamburg in 2017 from happening. The protests then led to vandalism and violence throughout the city and forced the mayor to apologize for not being able to guarantee the security.
That mayor is the current German chancellor, Olaf Scholz.
Security is so strict that the bulk of the delegations and accredited journalists will follow a good part of the event from the town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, located 17 kilometers away.
Access to the castle, which houses several luxury restaurants, is prohibited for private vehicles.
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