Minister Frattini: The Maddalena Summit, a Fresh Opportunity for Global Governance
03/12/2008
The Italian-run G8 Summit will provide an opportunity for building a structured relationship with the emerging countries. It will be set up in such a way as to ensure that the emerging countries are fully involved, and it will be working in close coordination with the G20 on economic and financial issues. This will be the Italian G8 Presidency's contribution to addressing the global challenges, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini explained in the course of a joint hearing of the Chamber of Deputies and Senate Foreign Affairs Committees on 3 December.
One of the first points on the 2009 G8 Presidency's agenda will consist in defining a new kind of international economic governance entailing, among other things, updating the Bretton Woods institutions, laying the groundwork for effective economic and financial cooperation at the global level and forging rules for greater market stability and the prospect of sustainable growth.
Another key issue will be energy availability and security, in an effort to achieve efficiency and savings on the one hand, and to develop alternative and renewable energy sources on the other.
Where the struggle against climate change is concerned, the Italian G8 Presidency - also on the basis of the recent energy and climate package thrashed out at the European level - will endeavour to foster the achievement of a global agreement in the context of the UN Framework Conference on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which is due to convene in Copenhagen in December 2009, only a few months after the G8 Summit on the island of La Maddalena.
Another issue on which the 2009 G8 agenda will be focusing is food safety, with the UN's Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation being strengthened and given a fresh boost so that it can become the coordination centre of the UN High Level Task Force (UNHLTF) for food safety, while at the same time hosting the Global Partnership for Agriculture and Food Safety (GPAFS). In an effort to highlight the importance that Italy assigns to the issue of food safety, an Agriculture Ministers' meeting has been scheduled at the Summit for the very first time in the G8's history.
The Italian Presidency will also afford priority to promoting development and to the struggle against poverty, issues in connection with which it is crucial that Africa and its leadership - with the African Union heading the list - be directly involved. In Frattini's view, it is going to be necessary to ensure that all the factors contributing to development interact with one another - in other words, not just aid but also, for instance, new kinds of partnership between the public and private sectors, or innovative financial, trade and investment tools.
In the course of the hearing, Minister Frattini drew his audience's attention also to the political issues that the countries' diplomats will be addressing: the struggle against terrorism, the struggle against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and the regional crises involving Afghanistan, Pakistan and Africa.
Finally, the Farnesina incumbent highlighted the Italian Government's wish to coordinate structurally with the other European Union member countries in running Italy's year as G8 President.
