Time.news – La Covid pandemic it has hit very hard but there are all the signs of a restart, but we must avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, letting inequalities take root in the social fabric. This is the message launched by the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, to G7 leaders meeting in Carbis Bay, Cornwall, for the first time face to face again.
Seated around the table, the leaders of GB, USA, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and Italy, as well as the EU leaders, are well aware of the imperatives: we need a strong, ‘green’ and balanced recovery, but also to ensure that poor Covid vaccines arrive; new funds for education, especially for women, and efforts to combat climate change.
Criticisms and disputes
Words that must be followed by facts, as critics have pointed out, which have targeted the Downing Street announcement that it wants to donate at least 100 million doses of the vaccine within the next year (but of these, only 5 million for September) and 430 billion pounds for education in developing countries, after having recently cut the funds for the same cause.
From the outside world, hundreds of demonstrators, kept away by massive security measures, protested against the inaction and ineffectiveness of the commitments made, urging the Great Ones of the Earth to act immediately. “The earth is hotter than a young Leonardo Di Caprio” the activists mocked, giving shape to creative protests, with inflatables, disguises and colorful banners.
The mistake not to be repeated
“It’s really wonderful to see each other again in person, I can’t tell you how much difference it makes”, the host began, convinced that there is “the potential for a very strong recovery and all the reasons to be optimistic”.
However, he stressed, “it is vital not to repeat the mistakes of the last great crisis, the economic recession of 2008, when the recovery was not uniform in all parts of society. I believe that what went wrong with this pandemic, or what risks being a lasting wound is that inequalities can take root. “
“We need to make sure that as we recover, we improve our societies and rebuild better,” BoJo said, citing that ‘Building back better’ chosen as the title of the summit.
Draghi’s exhortation
A message on which the Prime Minister also insisted, Mario Draghi, called to coordinate the session dedicated to the economy. “In the past, during the other crises, in our countries we have forgotten about social cohesion”, said the head of the government, according to whom it is a “moral duty to act differently”. Draghi underlined “the importance of active labor policies to help the weakest, especially women and young people”.
The American president spoke of a strengthened commitment to “build a more just and inclusive global economy” Joe Biden, while the head of the Elysée, Emmanuel Macron, he launched an exhortation to concreteness, indicating in a tweet the “responsibility of setting clear objectives and making concrete commitments to face the challenges of our time. This G7 must be that of action”.
EU table on post-Brexit
Before the official start of the work, Draghi and Macron met with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the EU leaders, Charles Michel e Ursula von der Leyen: a necessary coordination table, in light of the dispute with the United Kingdom on compliance with the agreements relating to Northern Ireland in the post-Brexit, and in view of the bilateral agreements with Johnson.
After the first day of work, it is the moment of the queen: with an unusual move, Elisabetta, accompanied by Prince Charles and Camilla and his nephew William together with his wife Kate, arrived in Cornwall to attend the reception organized at the Eden Project, the ‘home’ of two enormous biospheres with over 100,000 species of plants.
The 94-year-old monarch, who will welcome American President Joe Biden and his wife to Windsor Castle on Sunday, arrived by train, unlike Johnson who used the plane attracting arrows for the unclear choice.
Prince Charles has long been committed to the fight against climate change who, together with his son William, will host a reception for the leaders and CEOs of some of the largest companies in the world, where they will discuss how the private sector can work with governments to face it.
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