Berlin
International cooperation has been given a boost by the arrival of Joe Biden’s administration in the United States, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday after talks between leaders of the G7 richest countries.
“It is clear that multilateralism will once again have a stronger chance through the G7 nations,” she told reporters.
“In particular multilateralism is boosted through the change in the US government — the Biden administration has already demonstrated this with its first decisions” on returning to the Paris climate accord as well as lending support once again to the World Health Organisation.
The global crisis underscores the value of international co-operation and the limits of nationalism, Merkel said on Tuesday in a virtual address to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Davos Agenda event, pushing for co-ordinated action on issues from digital taxation to trade.
“This is the hour of multilateralism,” she said. “We see that in such an existential case the attempt to isolate fails long term — at least in relation to this pandemic it failed.”
The German leader, who regularly clashed with Donald Trump’s “America first” doctrine, said it is an “important sign” that the US is rejoining the World Health Organization and called on President Joe Biden to unblock the World Trade Organization.
She also wants the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to quickly reach an agreement on digital taxation and called for a global antitrust regime to tackle cross-border competition issues.
In a call with Merkel on Monday, Biden spoke of his intent to “revitalise the transatlantic alliance, including through Nato and with the EU”, according to a White House readout. Merkel invited Biden to visit Germany when pandemic-related travel restrictions ease.
Multilateralism and, in particular co-operation between the EU and a post-Trump US, was a theme explored by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen during her Davos address earlier in the day.
“The challenges to our democracy, the pandemic, climate change — in his inauguration speech, President Joe Biden so aptly spoke of a cascade of crises and, indeed, we face an outstanding set of challenges,” von der Leyen said. “But we can meet them if we work together; that is what we all have to learn again after four long years.”
She spoke in particular about the difficulties posed to democracy and freedom of speech by social media and said she wants Europe and the US to join forces to “create a digital economy rule book that is valid worldwide”.
Merkel has been sounding the alarm over faster-spreading mutations of the coronavirus, pushing for tougher measures even as infection rates decline.—AP
