Visits

Detail

Transcript of Foreign Secretary's Special Briefing on Prime Minister's Visit to Italy (October 30, 2021)

October 30, 2021

Shri Arindam Bagchi, Official Spokesperson: Good evening and Namaskar, welcome to this Special Briefing by Foreign Secretary Shri Harsh Vardhan Shringla, on Prime Minister’s visit to Rome for the G20 Summit. Today is actually day two, but not the end of day two. But this is a good opportunity, since Foreign Secretary has kindly agreed to spend some time to explain what exactly has been happening and what has been the Prime Minister's agenda. So sir, I will give you the floor. Thank you.

Shri Harsh Vardhan Shringla, Foreign Secretary: Namaskar and good evening, as JS (XP) has just mentioned, today is day two of the Prime Minister's visit to Rome for the G20 Summit. It has been a full day of engagements and the day hasn't ended. There are still a few events that the Prime Minister is scheduled to attend. On his first engagement of the day, the Prime Minister called on His Holiness Pope Francis at the Vatican. You are already aware of some of the details of that very special meeting. But as you know, this is a unique occasion as the last interaction between the Prime Minister of India and the Pope was in June 2000 when late Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee met Pope John Paul II at the Vatican. This is a private audience that the Prime Minister had with the Pope. The two leaders discussed many topical issues including the COVID-19 pandemic, economic and health recovery from the pandemic, the issue of climate change and the environment. You can judge the warmth of the conversation by the fact that the meeting was to have been a 20 minute schedule but lasted for around an hour.

The Prime Minister invited Pope Francis to visit India at an early date. The last papal visit to India was in 1999 when Pope John Paul II visited India. The Pope has graciously accepted the Prime Minister's invitation and in his own words, I'm paraphrasing him, he says, "you have given me the greatest gift, I'm looking forward to visiting India.” The Prime Minister presented his holiness with a silver candle stand and a book on our commitment to the environment. The Pope reciprocated with a bronze plaque with the inscription, "The desert will become a garden”. As you know, this is a quote from the Old Testament. Prime Minister also had a brief meeting with the Secretary of State of the Vatican, His Eminence Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

Prime Minister then subsequently visited the venue of the G20 Summit, where he attended the inaugural ceremony with the other leaders and thereafter he attended the first session on the "global economy and global health”. In his intervention at this first event of the G20, the Prime Minister highlighted India's contribution in the fight against the pandemic. He mentioned India's medical supply to over a 150 countries. He spoke about our vision of ‘One Earth One Health’, which is essentially the need for a collaborative approach in the international domain in the fight against the corona pandemic. I'm talking about collaboration from R&D, research, to collaboration in actually combating pandemics, collaboration across the board in developing mechanisms that can cope with future pandemics and future global health issues. So the concept of ‘One Earth One Health’ is something that was enunciated by the Prime Minister, well received by G20 leaders because this is something that is very, very important to the international community and we are looking for comprehensive global solutions that can address issues that also deal with problems of inequity, problems that developing countries face and this is again, another approach towards the overall concept of the global common good that the Prime Minister has spoken of on a number of occasions.

Prime Minister stressed on the need for resilient global supply chains, mentioned also India's bold economic reforms, the lowering of the costs of doing business with India. He spoke about innovation in India, the efforts at developing sort of a culture of innovation. He invited the G20 countries to make India their partner in economic recovery and supply chain diversification. I think, in some senses, the Prime Minister also brought out the fact that despite the challenges of the pandemic, India continued to be a trusted partner in the context of reliable supply chains. He spoke about the IT sector, the BPOs, where we did not allow the pandemic to come in the way of our contribution in the overall chain in the global processes.

The Prime Minister expressed satisfaction over the G20 decision to come up with a 15% minimum corporate tax to make the global financial architecture more just and fair. You are aware that 15% minimum corporate tax which ensures that companies don't go to the lowest possible tax even in order to minimise their tax burden and that the large multinational corporations pay their share of taxes to countries that they are located in. Here, I think it was also pertinent to mention that it was in 2014, that the Prime Minister had first proposed this idea of a minimum corporate tax in order to prevent to some extent evasion of taxes or you know the concept. 2014 G20 Summit is when the Prime Minister spoke about this, he first mentioned the concept. So today there is satisfaction of the fact that the G20 has actually adopted this, this has become a global norm. And I think this is a very important step in ensuring more rationalised global tax structures and better cooperation in the international domain when it comes to issues like tax evasion, money laundering, corruption, so on and so forth. Some of the issues that G20 is currently dealing with.

Prime Minister conveyed that India has not only vaccinated over a billion of our citizens, but more important is that we are ready to produce over 5 billion vaccine doses by the end of next year. This obviously will be available not only for our citizens, but the rest of the world and that this is our own contribution to reducing, as I mentioned vaccine inequities, especially in the developing world. Obviously, we also believe that the WHO’s approval, the emergency use authorization for Covaxin or indigenous vaccine pending with them would facilitate this process of our assisting other countries. So there was emphasis in vaccine research, manufacturing, and I mentioned innovation also. We have obviously invested a fair amount in that effort in order to make it available for our citizens and citizens all across the world.

The Prime Minister spoke about facilitating international travel. I did mention this yesterday, but he mentioned in his statement at the G20 today, he talked about the mechanism of mutual recognition of vaccine certification as a means of achieving this. After the G20 session, the Prime Minister held two formal meetings, you would have seen photographs, he has met all of the G20 leaders that have come there, they've exchanged notes, but he had two formal meetings. One was with the President of France His Excellency, Mr. Emmanuel Macron. And in that context, the Prime Minister welcomed the European Union's Indo-Pacific strategy. You recall the Prime Minister had met both the President of the European Union's Council and the European Union's commission and yesterday had spoken about the Indo-Pacific strategy. He did say that France had played an important role in facilitating a European Union Indo-Pacific strategy. And he thanked the French president for his leadership role in developing this strategy.The two leaders reaffirm their commitment to cooperate in the Indo-Pacific to find new and innovative ways to further the objective of free open and inclusive rules based order in the region. There was also a discussion on the forthcoming COP26 and climate change related issues and the need to focus on climate finance. Prime Minister invited President Macron to visit India at an early opportunity.

The next meeting of the Prime Minister, was with the Prime Minister of Singapore His Excellency Mr. Lee Hsien Loong. Prime Minister met the Singapore Prime Minister on a number of occasions, but this is their first meeting in the post pandemic period. So I think this is a good opportunity for the leaders to link up with each other. And with the Prime Minister of Singapore, Prime Minister discussed global efforts to combat climate change and forthcoming COP26. They discussed efforts to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, through expedited vaccination efforts and ensuring supply of critical medicines. In that context, the Prime Minister thanked the Prime Minister of Singapore for his assistance and that to the government and people of Singapore during our second wave of the crisis, we were able to source a very large number of our requirements in terms of ISO cryogenic tankers, concentrators, oxygen equipment from Singapore.

Prime Minister Lee congratulated our Prime Minister on the rapid vaccination drive in India. They discussed ways to enhance People to People ties in particular resumption of early travel between both countries, which is, as I mentioned yesterday, in terms of facilitating travel of our citizens to countries that our partner countries, I think the discussion of the Prime Minister of Singapore was particularly relevant.

Prime Minister will attend the formal cultural event and a Leaders’ dinner this evening. Tomorrow, as you're aware, there are two more sessions with the G20 on climate change and environment and a working lunch on sustainable development. In addition, the Prime Minister will also attend a side event hosted by President of the United States, His Excellency Mr. Joe Biden, on supply chain resilience; he will also hold other bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the G20 Summit. Thereafter the Prime Minister will depart for Glasgow where he will attend the COP26 Summit.

Shri Arindam Bagchi, Official Spokesperson: Thank you, sir. Time is actually very tight, we'll take the questions. Please go ahead.

Manish Chand:
Sir the meeting with the Pope lasted for over an hour. You spoke about some major issues discussed poverty, climate change. Could you give a flavour of the conversation? And this issue of religious freedom, did it figure in the discussions? Could you just broaden the briefing on this and the second part is in the meeting with the French President did AUKUS figure in the discussions? France expressed an interest in joining the Quad in some way or supporting the Quad, something in that way. Thank you.

Pranay Upadhyaya: Sir, Pranay Upadhyay from ABP News, kya aaj ki jo G-20 kee baithak thi, uske andar Global energy crisis ko lekar bhee koi baatcheet hui hai aur kya PM ne is maamale ko uthaaya hai ki duniya bhar mein jo energy crisis ya energy ke prices badh rahe hain usko kis tareeke se handle kiya ja sakta hai? (Questioned in Hindi; Approximate translation) Sir, Pranay Upadhyay from ABP News, has there been any discussion on the global energy crisis in today's G-20 meeting and whether the PM has raised the matter of the energy crisis or the rising energy prices across the world? How it can be handled?”

Sidhant: Sidhant from WION, sir. During his intervention, how much focus was there on climate issue because this year's G20 is all about COVID crisis and climate change, and we have seen an increasingly divided world when it comes to climate change over climate financing as we go to the Glasgow climate meeting.

Pragya: Sir Pragya from ANI. On Pope's meeting you said that he has invited the Pope and he has accepted the invitation. So is there a timeline to the visit of Pope to India and also significance of it?

Shri Harsh Vardhan Shringla, Foreign Secretary: Now let me start by answering Manish’s question. The meeting between the Prime Minister and His Holiness, the Pope was a very personal meeting. In other words they spent time on a one to one basis. I know that the meeting was characterised by warmth and candour. Both, the Pope and the Prime Minister spoke of number of issues, which, as I mentioned, are topical and relevant to societies all over the world. How do you deal with this issue of the COVID pandemic, what have we done in terms of our own health preparedness, best practices in India, also issues which are relevant to the world like climate change, the environment. I think there was also a conversation on a number of unique steps that we have taken in our own way to help communities and people in distress all over the world, whether it was facilitating evacuations in Iraq or from Yemen or from different parts of the world including Afghanistan. And, of course, His Holiness took a lot of time to explain to the Prime Minister about the Vatican, about their work, about some of the interesting artefacts and memorabilia that is there in the Vatican. It is like a museum, it's a very unique, I would say, place which has housed centuries of religious and spiritual objects. So, of reverence for people all over the world. So, it has to be seen in that context. I can tell you that no issue of the sort that you have alluded to was ever discussed. As I said, it was not a discussion on any of issues of that nature, it was a discussion which was completely devoid of any extraneous issues. It was confined to a very, very warm and I would say, very convivial conversation between two leaders.

Now, as far as the meeting with President Macron is concerned, I do recall that AUKUS came up but very tangentially in the conversation. It was not a major subject of conversation or topic by itself. There was no discussion on Quad whatsoever. Pranay aapne G20 ke bare mein yeh Global energy crisis ka mudda aapne pucha ki agar ye mudda raise hua tha meeting mein. Aapko pata hai ki jo pehli meeting aaj G20 ki hui veh sirf health issues par thi. To yeh shayad energy crisis uss par usska utna relevance nahin tha aur ho sakta hai ki baad mein koi agar mauka mile to iss ki charcha jaroor hogi par aaj nahin hui. (Answered in Hindi; Approximate translation) Pranay, you asked whether this issue of the global energy crisis was raised in the G20 meeting today. You know that the first G20 meeting that took place today discussed only the health issues. So perhaps this energy crisis did not have that much relevance to it there and it may be that if there is any chance later, it will definitely be discussed, but it did not happen today.

Sidhant you spoke about a possible climate divide, or rather a divide in the G20 on climate related issues. I don't see it that way. I think G20 represents prominent countries all over the world, that contribute greatly to the global economy and also more important dealing with the problems that the world faces. And I think the endeavour of the leaders is to find solutions. Obviously, there are different ways of finding those solutions. But everybody knows that climate change is an issue. So you may have different views about how to tackle the issue of climate change, you may feel that there is more emphasis on one or the other areas of climate change. But the fact that climate change is a problem for the globe to face is there. I am sure there's another day full day of meetings which are there. I'm sure at the end of this all we will find that the G20 will have solutions, will have outcomes that represent the consensual view of the organisation. So that's all I can say for now on this issue.

I think from ANI the question was about the invitation that the Prime Minister extended to the Pope. The Prime Minister and the Pope did not discuss the dates of the visit. The Prime Minister said please visit India at your earliest convenience. Obviously, the actual details we work out through diplomatic channels. The fact of the matter is the Prime Minister did invite the Pope, the significance of the invitation is well known to all of us. The last Papal visit to India was in 1999, when Pope John Paul II visited India. It is obviously going to be a very important visit, both for India to receive His Holiness and for the Pope to visit India, as I did mention to you the Pope was delighted to visit India. Although he's never been to India, he has, obviously, a great sentiment about our country. And he said that this is really the greatest gift that you could give me. I'm looking forward to visit India.

Manish: Any quotable quote on what Pope said about India, you know, as in just a brief quote, or Prime Minister Modi?

Shri Harsh Vardhan Shringla, Foreign Secretary: Well, I did tell you what he said about India. But as I said, the meeting was one to one. I was not privy to the conversation. So I can't quote on something that I was not present in. But as I said, it was obviously a meeting that lasted much longer than was scheduled. It was a meeting that reflected warmth and conviviality. And it was a meeting that I saw that both the Prime Minister and the Pope had a very very sense of great bonhomie and closeness that radiated from both of them when you saw them together, when we went and paid our respects to them.

Sidhant: Sir we saw pictures of the President Joe Biden, exchanging pleasantries with Prime Minister very warmly so anything beyond that anything they exchanged, they conversed?

Shri Harsh Vardhan Shringla, Foreign Secretary: Well, again, we were not present at that particular instant when Prime Minister met President Joe Biden, obviously the Prime Minister last met President Biden in Washington DC last month. They would have certainly recalled the meeting at that time. Prime Minister also accepted President Biden's invitation to attend his side event tomorrow evening and I'm sure Prime Minister will have a very, very important intervention to make in that particular meeting.

Shri Arindam Bagchi, Official Spokesperson: Thank you very much, sir. Thank you for your presence and for the details that you provided. And I also thank all of you here, friends from the media who have joined us and those who are joining us live. Stay tuned to our social media channels as well as website and other outlets of the ministry as the visit progresses tomorrow for the third day. Thank you. Good evening.

Shri Harsh Vardhan Shringla, Foreign Secretary: Thank you.



Comments

Post A Comment

  • Name *
    E-mail *
  • Write Your Comment *
  • Verification Code * Verification Code