The G20 meeting of finance ministers in Bangalore, India, on Friday 24 and Saturday 25 February, ended in failure and once once more brought to light the fault lines between member states on the issue. of the war in Ukraine.
China and Russia have blocked Western ambitions to agree on a clear statement on the first anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine. Moscow and Beijing opposed two paragraphs on the war. The meeting ended without a joint statement.
On the eve of the G20, Germany, France and the United Kingdom pleaded for member countries to adopt an explicit reference to Ukraine. Bruno Le Maire had indicated that it was impossible to question the declaration of Bali in Indonesia of November 2022 in which the leaders had declared that “most G20 member states have strongly condemned the war in Ukraine”. “We will oppose any backsliding”, said the French Minister of the Economy, like his German counterpart, Christian Lindner. Starting a visit to India on Saturday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also called on the G20 not to let up on pressure on Russia and to continue to send “a strong message”.
“Different assessments of the situation”
At the end of the Bangalore meeting, India contented itself with publishing a « résumé » et “a final document of the president” acknowledging disagreements. Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told reporters that the prepared statement contained two paragraphs from the Bali statement, which were denied by Russia and China.
The first paragraph states that “most members strongly condemn the war in Ukraine” specifying that“there were other points of view and different assessments of the situation and the sanctions”. A second emphasizes “the need to uphold international law and the multilateral system that preserves peace and stability” and judge “the inadmissible use or threat of use of nuclear weapons”.
China and Russia did not sign, arguing that their role was to “dealing with economic and financial issues”. In a statement released in Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry accused Westerners of having “destabilized” the meeting by attempting to impose a « diktat ».
In front of the press, in Bangalore, the vice-president and minister of economy of Spain, Nadia Calvino, regretted, without however naming a name, that certain « positions » within the group are “less constructive”than in Bali.
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