The finance ministers of the United States and Europe, who were attending a G20 summit in Washington on Wednesday, walked out of the meeting to boycott Russia’s presence in these international forums.
The G20 is one of the most important economic and international forums in the world. It consists of the United States, European Union, China, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, India, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and South Africa Turkey.
This Wednesday the finance ministers and central bank governors of the world’s richest countries met to address global challenges such as rising debt and a potential food crisis.
Days before the meeting, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced she would boycott some meetings when Russian officials were present, according to a senior US official.
Yellen will emphasize that “the benefits and privileges of the world’s major economic institutions (…) are reserved for countries that respect the fundamental principles that maintain peace and security around the world,” the official said, clarifying that the However, this group cannot allow Russia to stop the work of the G20.
France has said it will join the boycott, but Berlin has no intention of joining, according to a German government source, although it will “certainly send strong messages” during and after the meetings.
At the meeting this Wednesday, it was the minister of all people Yellen from the United States, Bruno Le Maire, the French Finance Minister, and the European Commissioner for Economic Affairs, Paolo Gentiloni, who left the meeting.
The job of these commissars shows relative unity among the pro-Western countries that have been most opposed to the invasion of Ukraine.
In view of the boycott threat, experts see little chance that the bloc will reach a consensus at this meeting on global challenges such as climate change and debt relief for poor countries.
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva called on the countries on Wednesday G20 to continue their cooperation despite the tensions.
“No country can solve its problems alone. It is obvious that the cooperation must and will continue,” he said at a press conference.
“Low Expectations”
“I think expectations should be extremely low‘ said Matthew Goodman of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), who ruled out that the countries would agree on the Ukraine crisis.
After the economic recession caused by Covid-19, the global economy is taking a fresh hit due to the Russian invasion of its neighbour, which has pushed up food and fuel prices and prompted the IMF to cut the world growth outlook for this year to 3.6% .
US President Joe Biden has proposed excluding Russia from the G20, but Mark Sobel, a former Treasury Department official and now US chair of the Official Forum of Monetary and Financial Institutions, told AFP there was no clear mechanism for excluding Russia the support of China and India.
“I think it really raises a fundamental question about how global governance should be handled,” he reflected.
The split also does not bode well for the G20 Common Framework, which was put in place during the pandemic to help heavily indebted countries find a way to restructure their debt, but which Sobel says is “flopping” as China and creditors pull out reluctant to participate in the private sector.
Sobel believes growing disagreements between the United States and China on a range of issues unrelated to Ukraine make progress under this framework unlikely.
*With information from AFP.
As this is news of global interest, all content related to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine will be freely available to our readers on all SEMANA digital platforms.