Macron’s “New Global Financing Pact”: More Green Gobbledygook

French President Macron convened June 22-23 in Paris 40 heads of state and government, leaders of major international organizations and financial institutions, as well as various CEOs and private investors, for a summit on launching a “new global financing pact”. The official objectives of the Summit were to reform the international financial system, to forge a “more balanced financial partnership between South and North”, to reduce the over-indebtedness of poor countries, etc.

That sounds good and fine, except that the focus was solely on “climate finance”, and even there, the results were paltry. The representatives of the trans-Atlantic system offered a few crumbs to poor countries for “green” investments and fighting climate change, but there was no debt reduction or relief forthcoming, just one debt restructuring worked out for Zambia on the sidelines. Nonetheless, the mere fact that the Summit was called reflects the growing recognition that “the West”, with its policy of selective sanctions, IMF conditionalities, and brutal treatment of migrants, is losing the Global South, and needs to try and lure those countries back.

For President Macron personally, whose delusions of grandeur are well known, it was also an attempt to get himself invited to the August summit of the heads of state of the BRICS in South Africa –in order to better divide the group and prevent its support for real economic development and the use of alternative currencies for trade. Participating in the Paris event were four of the five BRICS members: Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, as well as South Africa’s President Ramaphosa and Brazil’s President Lula (cf. below). In an interview with France-Info on June 22, Macron crowed that “this summit shows the isolation of Russia”, which is violating international law, and destabilizing Africa. His ploy, however, is doomed to fail.

Chinese Prime Minister Li, in his speech, explained President Xi’s Global Development Initiative, which offers all countries the possibility to share in the opportunities of China’s extraordinary development of the past decades.