Kitten Conjunctivitis Tea Bag

Heiligendamm Process: One small step, but not a substitute for global governance reform

The Heiligendamm process for which the federal government received the endorsement of its G8 partners, is a small step, but by far not a substitute for a democratic reform of the global governance system. A "new partnership", a "new form of specific cooperation" and especially in particular a "new form of topic-specific dialogue" to the G8 in the next two years with the so-called Outreach 5 countries (O5) China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico maintain as at the end of World Economics declaration means of Heiligendamm. As a platform for the federal government - initially limited to two Years - the OECD proposed what came first with skepticism, but then, after being assured that it merely "technical facilities"'m accepted, was.

The themes of this Heiligendamm process are only those of interest to the north and the G8: innovation and patent protection, freedom of investment, joint responsibility for Africa (hides behind it the intention of the O5 "new donors" in the OECD to get) and not least the question of who contributes how much in future to reduce CO2 emissions. - In advance of Heiligendamm, the G5 countries but sent several signals that they are with each other in the sense a stronger South-South coordination would better match. What is the O5-specific interest in the new cooperation with the G8 remains at present unclear. It is noteworthy however that the Formulierungwen in joint statement by the G8 and O5 have been far less dogmatically.

For the Federal Government was the O5 approach of the "middle way" between the status quo and the serious attempt to expand the G8, or even to replace it by a truly representative body. But not only the "G-8 partners" - including the Chancellor himself - wanted to retain the anachronistic G8 construction. The Arguments that have been conducted for the field are brought about by the hair pulled (it was the "small intimate circle" or be it the G8 as worthy of preservation "community of values"). The stopgap measure that is now the result is a pseudo-solution, which remains a world away from the global governance reforms that are on the agenda.