A thriller is unfolding among the governments of the advanced democracies these hours, because tomorrow and Thursday, April 20 and 21, the G20 Finance takes place in Washington. the first G20 since the beginning of the war and its even symbolic importance cannot be missed by anyone: the Group of Twenty the twenty largest economies on earth, representing about 90% of the world gross product born with the financial crisis of 2008 and today perhaps the best symbol of it how globalization can be governed by the equal confrontation between rich countries and rising powers.
The unpleasant presence of Siluanov
But now he has a problem, with a name and a surname (as well as a patronymic): Anton Germanovich Siluanov, Minister of Finance of the Russian Federation. As such, he was also invited by Indonesia’s rotating presidency to the G20 meetings scheduled for tomorrow and Thursday on the fringes of the International Monetary Fund’s spring meeting in Washington. But the western countries of the group of winds are reluctant to attend meetings attended by their peer representative from Moscow. The problem had already exploded ten days ago at the socalled B20, the equivalent of the G20 at the level of trade associations. This had been a video conference only meeting, but by the time the Russian representative appeared on the screens, various European delegations (not all actually) had closed and left.
The US no
After all, US President Joe Biden himself said that Russia should be excluded from the G20. But that’s why no one knows exactly how the G20 will take place at the moment, because the invitation to Russia cannot be revoked. At least Indonesia does not intend to do so, also because China is opposed to Moscow’s exclusion. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko has been invited as a special guest and will also be seated at the table, likely alongside Kyiv Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal. The Western ministers who have sanctioned Russia, including Italy’s Daniele Franco, will have to contend with a difficult dilemma: if they boycott the G20, they risk destroying the most useful space for globalization governance and will not get in be able to face the countries that are emerging on the food crisis that the war is provoking especially in Africa. But if Westerners agree to sit down and argue with Siluanov (probably in connection) then they risk legitimizing Russia as an equal interlocutor despite Ukraine’s illegal aggression and war crimes.
The EU’s dilemma
Janet Yellen, the US Treasury Secretary, will try to sort out the problem with a kind of slalom: Your people have let the Associated Press know that Yellen will be there for a session or two, but not always. And right now, G20 European ministers are looking for a common way if there is one to sit around the table but avoid the awkwardness of Siluanov’s presence. We will understand better in the next few hours what will be decided. Certainly this dilemma of the G20 is the picture of the crisis that multilateralism is going through because of the war in Europe. The solution will show in the coming days and especially in the coming months whether globalization will really remain intact. Or it will be broken in two for a long time by Vladimir Putin’s guns and Xi Jinping’s feigned neutrality of China.