G7 emergency summit on Russia underway
Hamilton Spectator
THE HAGUE, Netherlands – Stephen Harper and his fellow G7 leaders are gathered at the official residence of the Dutch prime minister for an emergency summit on the situation in Russia.
U.S. President Barack Obama was the first to arrive for the summit and was greeted by Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
The leaders joked and laughed together briefly before getting down to business; Russia’s aggression in eastern Europe amid the worst crisis for the region since the Cold War.
Harper is pressing the G7 to expel Russian President Vladimir Putin from the G8 and is urging his European colleagues to take a tougher stand against Moscow.
Earlier in the day, he said economic concerns will have to take a back seat as the West determines how to respond to Russian aggression.
“Within the context of Canadian foreign policy, we will do what we can to maximize the commercial opportunities for our firms,” the prime minister told a roundtable with Dutch business representatives on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit.
“But,” he continued, “we will not shape our foreign policy to commercial interests.”
When it comes to a global security crisis such as that unfolding in Ukraine, Harper said, “business people have to be aware that there may be risks to them and the government will take those risks, because at those points in times the government’s foreign and security policy priorities become paramount.”
The remarks likely foreshadowed what Harper would say at the summit itself.
The summit came shortly after Russia announced a travel ban on 13 Canadian politicians and officials in retaliation for travel and economic sanctions Canada imposed earlier this month.
The list is a mixed bag that includes the Speaker of the Commons, a cabinet minister, MPs noted for their support for human rights, a senator known for her work on Canadian-Ukrainian relations and the head of a Ukrainian-Canadian organization. Some have recently travelled to Ukraine.
The politicians are: Speaker Andrew Scheer; Peter Van Loan, the government House leader; Tory MPs Dean Allison, Ted Opitz, and James Bezan; Liberal MPs Irwin Cotler and Chrystia Freeland; NDP MP Paul Dewar; and Conservative Sen. Raynell Andreychuk.
The officials are: Wayne Wouters, clerk of the Privy Council; Jean-Francois Tremblay, deputy secretary to the cabinet; and Christine Hogan, assistant secretary to the cabinet.
Paul Grod, national president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, rounds out the list of the banned.
“I was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1979,” Cotler tweeted. “I did not stop fighting for human rights then, nor will I stop now.”
Harper is the only G7 leader who has personally witnessed the devastation in Kyiv and spoken face-to-face with Ukraine’s new leadership. He’ll give a first-hand account of what he saw and heard in Ukraine on Saturday and is expected to urge Russia’s expulsion from the G8.
Harper has called for a “complete reversal” of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and has also warned long and loudly that Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot be trusted amid the worst crisis for the region since the Cold War.
He’s also expected to argue that Putin’s actions will spur similar brazen territory grabs if they go unpunished.
Obama, meantime, is facing a test of his sway over the G7 as he attempts to convince his European allies to exert more pressure on Russia.
Foreign policy experts say Harper and Obama will likely present a united front to their European colleagues on Russia. Europe, however, does far more trade with Russia and many European economies are still fragile following the 2008 global economic downturn.
Some G7 members have therefore been more reticent about tougher economic sanctions against Moscow, although German Chancellor Angela Merkel has recently shifted towards the North American stance, reportedly fed up with false assurances Putin gave her about Crimea.
Harper witnessed that hesitance in his question-and-answer session with Bernard Wientjes, head of one of the largest business organizations in the Netherlands.
“Of course we are worried about what happens in the East now (with) the Netherlands being so dependent on exports to the East,” Wientjes said.
Harper interrupted him.
“None of us like seeing disruption to investment or to markets or to trade, but the fact of the matter is … when you have something like a military occupation of a country by another country, this is not something that we can subordinate to economic interests,” he said.
“These have very serious long-term implications for all of us.”
Wientjes said he agreed.
White House officials have said Obama is prepared to launch widespread penalties against key sectors of Russia’s economy, including its energy industry, if Putin dares move into southeastern Ukraine.
Russian troops are already amassing on the southeastern border of Ukraine. There are concerns that Russia could use the unrest in the eastern reaches of the country, where there’s a large Russian minority, as a pretext for crossing the border.
Most observers predicted the G7 leaders would emerge from the meeting to announce they’re suspending Russia from the G8. British Prime Minister David Cameron said Monday that the upcoming 40th G8 summit, scheduled to be held in Sochi in June, is off.
A Russia-European summit to be held on June 3 in Sochi has already been cancelled.
One observer — Ken Brill, former U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency — said while Putin might publicly shrug off an expulsion from the G8, it will privately “rankle” the Russian leader.