
© Mikhail Metzel/TASS
Ahead of the G20 summit Russian President Vladimir Putin in an exclusive interview with TASS spoke about challenges that Russia and other participants of the summit will face
The G20 summit is to start Saturday in Australia's Brisbane. Leaders of the world's 19 biggest states and the EU will discuss issues of global economy. Ahead of the summit Russian President Vladimir Putin in an exclusive interview with TASS spoke about challenges that Russia and other participants of the summit will face.
TASS: You are going to another G20 summit. To what extent is this format still in demand and relevant, and is it logical that some G20 countries, while striving to cooperate and develop the global economy, have been taking sanctions against one of the G20 members?
Putin: Is this format still in demand or not? I believe it is. Why?
The G20 is a good place for meeting each other, for discussing both bilateral relations and global problems, and for developing at least some sort of common understanding what this or that problem is all about, and how to resolve it. To make a road map for joint work. This is the most important. Hoping that everything that may be said there will be implemented is absolutely unrealistic, especially if one remembers that the decisions themselves are not mandatory. To an extent they are neglected. They are defaulted on then and there, when and where they are in conflict with somebody's interests. First and foremost this applies to the interests of global players.
For instance, at one of the G20 meetings a decision was made to enhance the role of developing economies in the activities of the IMF and to redistribute quotas. The US Congress blocked that decision. Full stop. Both the negotiators and our partners are saying: well, we would be glad, we signed everything, we made that decision, but the Congress will not let it through. There you have it.
And yet, the very fact that a certain decision has been formulated, that all international actors involved in the G20 found it right and fair and consonant with the current realities, this fact alone shapes the international public opinion and the experts' minds in a certain way, and this has to be taken into account. The very fact that the US Congress has refused to pass this law indicates that it is
the United States that drops out of the general context of resolving the problems facing the international community. One little thing: nobody cares to recall this. Some capitalize on their world mass media monopoly to hush up this information, to produce an impression it ostensibly does not exist.
You know what I mean. Everybody is talking about some current problems, including the sanctions and Russia, but in reality,
in global terms it is the United States that defies decisions being made. This is a fundamental thing, by the way. But it is being neglected. That does not mean, though, that it is a useless format. I have already explained why. It does yield benefits.
Comment: A bunch of flowery, meaningless words as if Britain was the only virtuous country in the world. In other words Cameron is just a cheerleader. Compare and contrast to what Putin has to say. It's sad and a shame that Putin has to try and have an intelligent conversation with people like Cameron.