“I have never seen such a unit of the G7”: the veteran of the G7 politicians, the French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, summarizes the atmosphere of a fireplace of the Greats that decided in the shadow of the Putin conflict to close ranks first of all around the contingent, colossal food crisis that is oppressing Ukraine. And the dense talks in the Schleswig-Holstein castle have focused on possible alternatives to the port of Odessa, where 25 tons of grain wait in silos to be freed from the Russian grip to reach global markets.
But the truth, according to an authoritative EU source, is that rail or road transport will never be a real alternative to Odessa: “Only a limited percentage of cereals can be exported by train or elsewhere”. A mediation with the Russians to unblock Odessa – this is the idea – “should take place through an international organization or a third country”. And to cross the Black Sea, after a possible green light from Moscow, it will still be necessary to deal with “a carpet of mines and enormous insurance costs”.
Guests of honor of the meeting were the foreign ministers of Ukraine and Moldova, Dmytro Kuleba and Nino Popescu. And in a press conference, the Ukrainian raised a very explicit alarm on the food crisis: “If we cannot export the agricultural products that are in the warehouses, we will not have room to accommodate the new crops and the crisis will become systemic, a total block of the Ukrainian supply chain “. Kuleba stressed that “we cannot afford it” and asked African and Asian countries “to put pressure on Russia to stop the war and remove the blockade on our ports”.
The hostess, Annalena Baerbock, has made a commitment to “overcome this crisis and act quickly”. The risk is the total stalemate of the Ukrainian production chain, with serious consequences for millions of people in Africa and Asia. The Italian foreign minister, Luigi di Maio, also warned of “a bread war” and announced that next month Italy will support an initiative together with the FAO to tackle the crux of the food crisis in the Mediterranean. Countries like Lebanon or Egypt but also many African countries are extremely dependent on Ukrainian grain supplies. So much so that the issue was addressed by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in his phone call yesterday with Russian President Vladimir Putin – the first since March 30.