G7 summit: 8,000 protesters gather as leaders prepare wide-ranging talks

Protesters set up a tent camp and police run checks on borders, with Fifa, US trade and climate change high on activists’ and world leaders’ agendas

 

A protester talks to a police officer in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, ahead of the G7 summit. Photograph: Boris Roessler/dpa/Corbis

Jessica Elgot-Saturday 6 June 2015

Thousands of activists have gathered in the German Alpine resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, as G7 leaders prepared for wide-ranging talks on subjects from Fifa corruption to controversial free trade agreements.

At the two-day summit, David Cameron will call on his fellow members Germany, France, the US, Italy, Canada and Japan, to tackle international corruption. In a speech on Sunday, in the wake of the crisis that has engulfed world football’s governing body, the prime minister is set to call corruption a “cancer” and the “arch-enemy of democracy”.

Cameron is also expected to urge fellow world leaders to come to an agreement on the controversial US-EU Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), to which many of those protesting have strong objections. Negotiations on the treaty have now lasted more than 700 days.

Campaigners at Global Justice Now, one of the groups protesting in the resort, said they expect a Europe-wide petition against the TTIP deal to hit 2m signatures in the coming week.

GJN’s Guy Taylor said: “There is clearly no mandate for the G7 leaders to be pushing ahead with this disastrous trade deal.

“TTIP may bring some economic benefits for a tiny handful of the business elite but for the rest of us it would mean compromising vital public services, the stripping of regulations protecting labour rights and the environment, and a dramatic erosion of democratic process.”

The summit is also expected to discuss the possible renewal of sanctions against Russia (which was refused an invite to what would have been a G8 summit over its involvement in Ukraine), funding for programmes to combat medical epidemics like Ebola, and the risk of a Greek exit from the euro.

The Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, has been invited to the G7 meeting to discuss the US-led campaign against Islamic State in his country and in Syria.

Climate change is also high on protesters’ and politicians’ agendas, and German chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday called for the industrial powers to throw their weight behind a longstanding pledge to seek $100bn to help poor countries tackle climate change, agreed in Copenhagen in 2009.

Merkel said in a video message on Saturday that it was important to have a “confirmation of this fund” from the G7.

Protesters set up a makeshift tented camp early on Saturday, and many more people are expected to arrive on buses from across Germany in time for the summit’s start on Sunday.

Police spokesman Hans-Peter Kammerer said the 8,000-strong crowd had so far been peaceful but added that 22,000 officers were on standby over fears more extreme factions from Germany, Austria, Italy and Britain could join the demonstrations.

German police said they would carry out spot-checks at the country’s borders, which, because Germany is a member of the Schengen agreement, are normally openly accessible.

Police had planned to keep all demonstrators away from the venue, which is in a tiny village five miles from Garmisch-Partenkirchen, but a court ruled that 50 protesters could be allowed inside the security zone, so G7 leaders would be able to hear them outside.

Simon Ernst, one of the organisers of the Stop Elmau demonstration, called the G7 leaders “the henchmen of bankers and corporations” and said that having just 50 demonstrators allowed to be near the actual venue was far too few.

“We think it shows an arrogant attitude toward freedom of assembly,” he said.

The group takes its name from the luxury hotel where the summit will take place, nestled 3,000 ft high in the snow-capped Bavarian mountains, from Sunday until Monday.

Stop Elmau said it is also demonstrating in opposition to free trade agreements like TTIP , as well as expressing opposition to Nato, and solidarity with migrants and refugees.

It will also draw attention to the “surveillance society and the dismantling of democratic liberties”.

At the demonstration on Saturday afternoon, participants ranged from anarchists with their faces covered, to peace protesters wrapped in rainbow flags, as well as many families with children.

One of the most striking groups were six clowns who blocked a main road in the town and forced a police van to seek an alternative route.

Monika Lambert, from the Bavarian city of Erlangen, said she had come “to exercise my democratic rights to say that everything the G7 decides is in the interest of the banks and capitalists”.

“I asked my parents what they did during the Nazi period and they did nothing,” she said. “I don’t want to tell my children and grandchildren the same thing.”