UofT G8 Information Centre: Analytical Studies. Genoa 2001. Russia

International security was anticipated to be the main focus for Russia this year at Genoa, with its objective being bringing forward issues of regional crises and terrorism. Terrorism was barely mentioned in summit documents, with the only reference to it being in the lower level foreign minister's report. Russia's relative success on this issue came with a separate G8 document issued concerning the Middle East. Other regional crises were also prominent in the foreign minister's report, and consequently, given that highlighting international security in this forum was isolated as Russia's central objective, Russia received a C+ grade.

Russia's opposition to the American NMD intitiative was made clear prior to the summit. American and Russian positions on the value of the ABM treaty could not differ more prior to the summit. Russia was highly oppositionist to the NMD and going into Genoa Russia's objective was framed as working to consolidate a coalition with other G8 members to voice opposition to the NMD, or essentially block the US from having a green light to go forward with NMD. Russia lost on this objective because the subject of NMD was almost non-existential throughout the summit. The opposition and hesitance towards the NMD did not find its way into the final communique, receiving only a brief and vague mention in the foreign minister's document. Rather, the NMD was left for discussion in the context of the US and Russian bilateral meeting where a degree of cooperation and compromise on Russia's strongly oppositionist stance was extracted by the Americans. Consequently, Russian grade on this issue is in the C-.

Russia wanted to shift attention away from the spread of Russian weapons of mass destruction and related technologies to China and rogue states such as Iran, Iraq, N.Korea and inhibit efforts to address methods of monitoring and policing such activities. Russia also aimed to get an extention on implementing the destruction of chemical weapons, consistent with the Chemical Weapons Convention. The fact that a commitment in this area was left out of the final G8 Communique and down graded to lower level discussions and documents corresponds with the Russian objective. On the other hand, the report from the G8 Foreign Minister's meeting in Rome reflects a setback to Russia's objective. The report contains an entire section relating to the objective on the issue, including strong endorsement of exsisting treaties concerning export controls. A significant blow to the Russian objective in this area is the document's endorsement of starting negotiations of the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty and the anticipated 5 year time line for the completion of such negotiations. Likewise, the report reinforces desire of members that Russia complies with the Chemical Weapons Convention. At the same time the wording used is soft more likely to be interpreted as encouraging rather than carrying a condoning attitutde towards Russia's lack of initiative in this area.

In the area of money laundering Russia scored a victory. Russia's objective was to make progress in shifting away from it's renagade black listed status. A year ago Russia, the 8th member of the G8 was blacklisted along with Nauru and the Philippines as "uncooperative jurisdictions". Coming to Genoa, Russia faced possible punishment by its G8 partners for not acting more aggressively to combat corruption and money laundering. Being reprimended in turn holds potential to threaten Russia's bid to host the 2003 summit. As evident in the communique released following the meeting of the G7 on the 20th of July, Russia got off the hook relatively easy.

14."�We endorse the recent Financial Action Task Force decisions de-listing four jurisdictions and recommending the adoption of additional counter-measures against the most uncooperative ones if they do not take appropriate action by September 30,2001�"

Thus while the communique encourages Russia to get it's act together, the G7 took the precaution to include the word Q Nauru and the Philippines "most" that allows for future differentiation between the blacklisted nations when the use of counter-measures is necessary. Subsequently, the G7 are in effect leaving Russia either room to manouver and clean up it's act, as well as that counter-measures that would likely serve as a regression in the G8 process of trying to include Russia. The statement in the above communique is a diluted form of commitment on this matter that was included in July's Finance Minister's report.

Russian objective in this area pertained to winning support for a debt restructuring package. Mention of such a package was absent from all summit documents. Russia receives a D- due to Russia's relatively strong economic position in the context of a relatively weak economic conditions of its G8 partners. Consequently, perhaps there was little room for advancing this objective at Genoa to being with.

Prepared by: Klaudyna Osika and Diana Juricevic. G8 Research Group, University of Toronto

	This Information System is provided by the University of Toronto Library and the G8 Research Group at the University of Toronto.
	Please send comments to: g8@utoronto.ca This page was last updated August 15, 2024.

Country Performance Assessment Russia

Country Performance Assessment
Russia