Disagreements and short tempers: The inside story of Justin Trudeau’s diplomatic scramble on Ukraine and Russia NEW from TondaMacC: cdnpoli
OTTAWA — In international diplomacy, what you see in public — the speeches and photo ops — is a smoothly polished version of rough-and-tumble conversations that rarely spill out in the open.
European and North American leaders differed on how quickly to ban all Russian banks not just the major ones from the SWIFT financial system. They differed on how quickly to target Putin’s closest allies, like billionaire Roman Abramovich, finally targeted at the end of the week. They differed on how quickly to cut off Russian oil and gas exports — a key supplier of energy to many European countries. NATO allies differed on whether to provide Polish Soviet-era jets to Ukraine’s aid.
Trudeau’s trip never started out as the miniseries of high-level multilateral and bilateral summits that it became. It was supposed to be just a bilateral visit to Germany, so Trudeau could rub elbows with its new progressive leader Chancellor Olaf Scholz and talk climate change and economic growth coming out of the pandemic.
Freeland told reporters the value of face-to-face meetings couldn’t be underestimated — that much more could be communicated and co-ordinated in person than in a 30-minute phone call even over secure government lines. Canadian officials say Freeland working with deputy minister Michael Sabia came up with the plan, with Freeland lobbying international counterparts to cut the Russian central bank out of the international SWIFT transaction system. Canada was first to publicly come out and call for it on Friday, Feb. 25.— a “watershed moment,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Soon after Switzerland ditched its historic neutrality and agreed to enforce sanctions.
Last week, the sense of an ongoing rush to craft new measures was evident as custom diplomatic practices fell by the wayside. In Germany, the top event organizer in the German chancellor’s office barked at Foreign Affairs Minister Joly to step back as Scholz and Trudeau were about to arrive. Then, as she was stepping back, he yelled “NOW!” at her.The escalating Russian attacks all week — from the devastating shelling of civilian neighbourhoods, the power outage at Chernobyl nuclear plant, and the bombing of Mariupol’s maternity hospital — were a grim reality that demanded a unified, stronger response.
Duda, after his own joint news conference with Trudeau ended, approached Canadian journalists. He’d hoped to speak to CTV chief anchor Lisa Laflamme. A fan of her newscast to perfect his English, Duda then revealed a lot about his own private conversations with Trudeau, more than the Canadian prime minister did.
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