Downing Street Says » G8 Summit

The Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) outlined details of the Prime Minister’s schedule ahead of the G8 Summit. On Friday he would travel to Rome for talks with Prime Minister Berlusconi. This would cover the EU agenda but the primary focus of this, and the other visits in the next few weeks would be intensifying the efforts to secure progress on Africa and Climate Change at the Summit in Gleneagles. Between now and Gleneagles the Prime Minister would also visit President Putin in Moscow, President Bush in Washington DC and he would also meet with President Chirac and Chancellor Schroeder during the first half of June, if possible. There were not exact timings at the stage. He would also speak via videoconference to Prime Minister Koizumi, of Japan and Prime Minister Martin, of Canada. We had deliberately set out an ambitious agenda for the G8 and now was the time for real negotiations. We were in detailed discussions which we would not provide a running commentary of, but the important point was that no one in the G8 disputed that Africa and Climate Change must be the priorities. We believed at this stage we were making progress and that we could fulfil our ambitions but we still had some way to go. We would start that process in Rome on Friday.

Asked if it was right that the Italians currently were opposed to the International Finance Facility (IFF) for Africa and whether there was a DfID announcement expected this week the PMOS said that he was not aware of announcement from DfID but would check on it. In terms of the various countries positions the PMOS stressed that this was a proper negotiation and when you were driving a proper negotiation it was generally counter productive to comment on the position of other countries. People would not take up final positions at this stage. The other point to make was that there was a rolling on process this year in terms of these two issues with the UN Millenium Summit in the autumn and the WTO meeting in Hong Kong, in December. This was all about achieving progress throughout the year, but obviously the G8 Summit was a major point in that process and we would be going for it in every way.

Asked if there would be a news conference in Rome the PMOS said that he anticipated that there would be. Friday was also Africa Day in Rome so there would also be a series of events there, some of which the Prime Minister would be involved in, in some way.

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So this time round, when Bliar goes to cosy up with Brush, can we have complete written transcripts of every word that passes between them – we don’t want them shaking hands on the Iran deal in the same way they agreed to get stuck into Iraq…
Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 24 May 2005 on 11:03 am | Link

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» Monday, May 23, 2005

G8 Summit

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