(General Assembly: Statement by Ambassador Berger on the Los Cabos Summit and the plan for the immediate future of the G20)

Mr. President,

Mr. Secretary-General,

Excellencies, dear colleagues,

Distinguished Delegates,

Germany aligns itself to the statement made by the European Union. 

Germany welcomes the results of the G20 Los Cabos Summit in Mexico and thanks Mexico for its very active and able chairmanship and Vice-Minister Aranda for her excellent  presentation.

Germany strongly welcomes the extension of the G20’s standstill agreement against protectionism until 2014 as an important contribution to our common efforts to achieve a strong, balanced and sustainable growth of the world economy. 

The Los Cabos Action Plan, which was approved at the Summit, is also an important contribution to this goal. It reaffirms the G20’s commitments on fiscal consolidation made at the G20 Toronto Summit in 2010: industrialised countries will halve their deficits until 2013 and at least stabilize their debt ratios until 2016. Germany is fully on track to meet these commitments.

Germany welcomes the decisions on financial regulation taken in Los Cabos. For us, a timely, full and consistent implementation of agreed policies is crucial in order to support a stable and integrated global financial system and to prevent future crises. 

The conclusion of the increase of resources of the IMF, which was achieved at the Summit, doubles the lending capacities of the IMF and was an important signal to reassure financial markets. We particularly welcome the substantive participation by emerging economies. 

We are especially glad that development constitutes an essential part of this year’s G20 agenda and of the Leaders’ communiqué. Since 2010 the G20 has made important decisions to promote development in LDCs, for example in the areas of infrastructure and food security. Moreover, it has helped to bring about better cooperation between the G20 and the United Nations, which benefited the effectiveness of development cooperation. 

Moreover, Germany also welcomes that Mexico has made inclusive green growth a priority of this year’s G20 agenda since green growth in developed and developing countries alike is critical to achieving sustainable development. Germany has actively participated in the informal group of co-facilitators on inclusive green growth and is happy about the deliverables.

We are convinced that development must continue to play an important role within G20 since strong, balanced and sustainable growth is only possible if G20 actions are also aimed at promoting growth in Low Income Countries. We therefore look forward to discussing a follow-up to the “Multi-Year Action Plan” during this and next year.

Finally the Summit also enhanced the G20’s cooperation on youth unemployment, food security and the fight against corruption.

With regard to upcoming Summits, we will encourage the G20 to put an emphasis on the discussion about how the G20 can live up to their potential in addressing urgent environmental challenges such as global warming, loss of biodiversity and more efficient use of natural resources.

Before concluding, I would like to welcome the announcement of the Secretary General on the conclusion of the selection process for the High-level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. We think that this is indeed a very timely initiative and will continue to provide our support to this important process.