Author: Ryan Baldry

This week finally sees the start of the long awaited G7 summit in Cornwall - the first in person meeting of the group for two years. But with all of the buzz around the arrival of President Biden on his first overseas visit and the excitement that comes with endless motorcades through the streets of Cornwall, what can we expect from the meeting of the world’s most powerful democracies?

Top of the agenda will of course be COVID and how the world’s richest democracies can help to expand on vaccine availability and take up in the Southern Hemisphere where access to vaccinations has been incredibly limited. The UK is already a global leader in supporting GAVI, the Global Vaccine Alliance so the Prime Minister will likely be using this platform to encourage countries to do more, an area where Biden has already hinted towards significant action from his administration.

Tackling Climate Change will also be very high on the agenda for the world leaders and again, with the UK hosting COP26 this November, it is another opportunity for the Prime Minister to demonstrate the incredible work already done by the UK and ask this to be matched by our allies. As our own polling has shown, this issue is incredible important to voters in the UK so all eyes will be on the G7 to see what agreements are made and if they do indeed go far enough.

Finally, countering the threat from Russia and China will feature heavily throughout the summit. With China and Russia pushing their own forms of vaccine diplomacy and the belt and roads initiative, the G7 will want to look at ways to bring the world’s democracies together to counter this race for influence in some of the world’s most vulnerable countries. There have already been significant pledges towards areas of development around access to education for women and girls and trade so it will be interesting to see if these commitments are matched or expanded on by the Group of Seven.

This G7 will be like no other. With this being Angela Merkel’s final summit as German Chancellor, President Joe Biden’s first and other members facing elections in coming months, there will be significant pressure for this meeting to deliver. But it is the UK that has brought them together and so we must do what we do best when facing difficult challenges, and that is to work with our incredible allies and partners around the world to create security and prosperity for our own people but also come together to help some of the world’s most vulnerable people when they need it most.