A meeting of finance leaders of the G20 economies ended on February 25 without a joint communiqué after faultlines over how to describe Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could not be bridged. Instead, a G20 Chair’s Summary and Outcome Document were released after the two-day meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in Bengaluru.
Coinciding with the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, leaders from countries such as the U.S. and France wanted a condemnation of Moscow for the invasion while host India felt G20 was not the forum to address such an issue and wanted a more neutral term like “crisis” or a “challenge” to describe the “geopolitical situation”.
Russia and China were upset at the use of the G20 platform for discussing political matters. India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was the chair.
The Summary stated that the G20 nations “reiterated” their national positions on the Ukraine war.
“Most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed that it is causing immense human suffering and exacerbating existing fragilities in the global economy – constraining growth, increasing inflation, disrupting supply chains, heightening energy and food insecurity, and elevating financial stability risk,” the Summary said.
“There were other views and different assessments of the situation and sanctions. Recognising that the G20 is not the forum to resolve security issues, we acknowledge that security issues can have significant consequences for the global economy,” it further said, adding this particular paragraph of the statement was not agreed to by Russia and China.
It went on to state that upholding international law and the multilateral system that safeguards peace and stability was essential(the Hindu)
