Georges D. Landau is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Brazilian Centre of International Relations (CEBRI) in Rio de Janeiro.

Brazil was distracted from the G8 and G20 summits by the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the ongoing electoral campaign (in that order of importance). Nevertheless, some articles have appeared in leading national newspapers (O Estado de S. Paulo, Folha de S. Paulo, and O Globo) and some think tanks, such as the Centro Brasileiro de Relaciones Internacionales (CEBRI) and the Centro de Estudos de Integração e Desenvolvimento, both in Rio de Janeiro, have devoted some discussions to these issues, under prodding from foreign foundations. 

The Role of the G8 in the G20 Era

There was scant attention given in the leading national media to the role of the G8 in the G20 era, but those analysts who wrote on the subject tend to agree that the G8 has outlived its usefulness and that the G20 is the forum of choice in which Brazil can, and does, express itself. Given the weakness and obsolescence of other fora, such as the UN, the G20 has emerged as the leading venue for global governance.

The position of the Brazilian government is that the G20 ought to supersede if not replace the G8; while this view is mostly shared by the press and academia, there is not widespread support for either among Brazilian elites. These fora are perceived to be too removed from daily realities, and aside from specialized foreign policy circles, the issues debated in Toronto failed to evoke public interest, let alone concern. When President Lula was still planning to attend, it was expected that his presence in Toronto would again catch the spotlight, but mainly because of his charismatic personality than the substance of his intervention.

In the Brazilian press, reporting on the summits was overshadowed by Lula’s absence from the G20, allegedly because he had to remain in Brazil in order to monitor emergency relief efforts for the victims of the recent catastrophic floods in the northeast of the country. In the opinion of this author (an opinion echoed by the media), this was a lame excuse — the real reason for his absence from this meeting (one he would not otherwise have missed for the world) lay in his desire to avoid criticism and backlash for Brazil’s support of Iran in the matter of the UN Security Council’s fourth round of sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear program. However, this is mere speculation.

Brazil was represented at the G20 by the Minister of Finance Guido Mantega, who happened to already be in Toronto for the summit preparatory meetings. Mantega said that, because of the economic emphasis of the agenda, Lula’s presence was not really required and that the president had “reserved” himself to attend the “political” summit of the G20, being held in Seoul next November — that is, shortly before Lula’s term expires on December 31. 

G20 Conflict or Cooperation

To the extent that there was analysis in the media on the positions prepared for the G20 summit and emerging from it, the dichotomy between industrial and developing countries was pointed out, as were the divergent positions within the G8. At the Toronto meeting, the European positions on fiscal adjustment — namely, to halve public spending by 2013 — prevailed over those of the United States and Brazil.

The Brazilian media did carry news of what the president would have said in Toronto (and Mantega actually did say), that is, to exhort the developed countries to continue to expand public spending in the face of the financial crisis — which is what Lula’s government did in Brazil in the context of the crisis, with positive results in the short term thanks to effective counter-cyclical policies, but questionable corollaries over the medium and long term. Specifically, Mantega said that emerging countries should not be burdened by the global recovery — advanced exporting countries should not make a severe, “draconian, exaggerated fiscal adjustment” at the expense of Brazil. This was also the gist of the president’s view on the subject.

The G20 Framework 

The honest response is that the G20’s “Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth” was indeed “too woolly” an issue to arouse serious interest from the business and financial communities. Brazil is enjoying an apparent economic boom,fuelled by domestic demand and abundant credit, and a complex subject

like the architecture for global governance is remote from current thinking of the business elite.

A few of Brazil’s leading media had meaningful coverage of the summits. This reflects the Brazilian public’s general lack of interest on the issues being discussed, which, momentous as they are, are viewed as arcane and esoteric by all but a few in the country’s intellectual elite. News about the summits had to compete — in a country obsessed with soccer — with the World Cup and with the ongoing electoral campaign. As a result, coverage was spotty and lacked analysis of the main topics debated. The one exception was extensive coverage by O Estado de S. Paulo.

G20 Record of Achievement

As noted in the previous section, this issue is of immediate interest to only a select group of diplomats, technocrats and a few academics, and has not reached the wider public. While some think tanks, like CEBRI, have focused on G20 issues, the public at large seems unconcerned. This is likely to remain the case as long as the domestic boom prevails.