MUNICH (AP) – Around 4,000 protesters gathered in Munich as the Group of Seven Leading Economic Powers prepared Saturday for its annual meeting in the Bavarian Alps in Germany, which is the G7’s rotating presidency this year.
Organizers hoped to mobilize up to 20,000 protesters in the Bavarian city and were disappointed by the low activity in Theresienwiese Park in Munich, the German news agency dpa reported.
Uwe Hicksch, one of the organizers of the protest, theorized that potential participants might find it inappropriate to challenge the world’s richest democracies during the Russian war in Ukraine.
“We have the impression that many people are worried about the war in Ukraine,” Hicksch told dpa.
Seven years ago, 35,000 people took part in protests when the G-7 held a summit in the same place in Bavaria.
G-7 leaders – from the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan – are expected to begin arriving in Germany on Saturday afternoon. Their agenda for the summit includes issues such as Russia’s war against Ukraine, climate change, energy and the looming food security crisis.
“Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine is also having an impact here,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a video podcast on Saturday, citing rising food, gas and energy prices.
Fifteen groups critical of globalization, from the international network Attac to the environmental organization WWF, called on people to participate in demonstrations for the summit this weekend.
Their demands include the phasing out of fossil fuels, the preservation of animal and plant diversity, social justice and an intensified fight against hunger.
“My demands to the G7 are that they have a clear commitment to the energy transition, that is, the exit from fossil fuels, all forms of fossil fuels, by 2035 at the latest, so that we can stop financing wars and conflicts,” he said. Killian Walter of the Greenpeace environmental group.
Earlier on Saturday, during a separate protest demanding more global equality, members of the Oxfam anti-poverty organization wore big heads to G7 leaders.
“We need concrete action to deal with the many crises of our time,” Oxfam spokesman Tobias Hauschild told the Associated Press. “This means that the G-7 must act immediately. They must fight hunger, inequality and poverty. ”
A total of about 18,000 police officers are stationed around the meeting place and the protests.
Scholz said G-7 leaders would discuss the current situation caused by the war in Ukraine, “and at the same time ensure that we stop man-made climate change.”
The chancellor was to greet leaders in the resort of Ellmau near Garmisch-Partenkirchen on Saturday night.
The G-7 summit itself will take place in Ellmau, Bavaria, from Sunday to Tuesday. Following the meeting, the leaders of the 30 NATO nations will gather for their annual summit, which runs from Wednesday to Thursday in Madrid.
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Grishaber reports from Berlin, Philippe Genet and Pietro De Cristofaro contributed from Munich.
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