Meeting of G20 finance ministers ends without final declaration
Published: Friday, Mar 1st 2024, 01:20
Updated At: Friday, Mar 1st 2024, 01:20
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The finance ministers of the leading industrialized and emerging countries (G20) were unable to agree on a joint final declaration at their meeting in São Paulo due to disagreements over the war in Ukraine. The German news agency DPA learned this from negotiating circles on Thursday (local time). Instead, the country holding the presidency, Brazil, published its own summary.
In this summary, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza are only mentioned in a footnote. The ministers addressed ongoing wars, conflicts and humanitarian crises and highlighted Ukraine and Gaza in particular, it says. However, Brazil, as the host of the G20 meeting, does not consider a meeting of finance ministers to be the right forum to clarify such geopolitical issues.
The Brazilians wanted to exclude the geopolitical crises and shift the debate to meetings of foreign ministers and heads of state and government, for example. They wanted the focus of the finance ministers' talks to be purely on economic policy issues.
At the meeting, Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter advocated a focus on financial stability, according to a press release issued by the Federal Department of Finance on Thursday. "It is crucial to learn the lessons from the banking turmoil in 2023", Keller-Sutter was quoted as saying. The Vice President of the Swiss National Bank, Martin Schlegel, accompanied her to São Paulo. Switzerland took part in the meeting at the invitation of Brazil.
"No common language"
German Finance Minister Christian Lindner emphasized that it had not been possible to reach a consensus despite intensive efforts on all sides. A joint declaration had failed because "we were unable to agree on a common language to assess the consequences of the war in Ukraine on the global economy".
There had also been an attempt to equate the Russian attack on Ukraine with the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Germany was unable to support this. The FDP leader had already emphasized during the meeting that Germany could not agree to any final declaration that did not mention the geopolitical conflicts.
After a G20 meeting, joint assessments and goals are usually set out in a communiqué. Since the war in Ukraine, however, talks have repeatedly stalled because Russia is also a member of the group. The finance ministers were also unable to agree on a common formulation at their meeting in India last year.
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