Following the two-day G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors summit in Bengaluru on Saturday, the group failed to issue a joint statement due to differences over the Russia-Ukraine war, with Russian and Chinese delegations opposing any mention of it in the combined communique.
Overview
While Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov and Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina did not attend the G20 meeting in India, and were instead represented by senior Russian economic officials, Chinese Finance Minister Liu Kun took part virtually. Both sides expressed disappointment over the G20 finance meeting being used to discuss political issues.
3/ https://t.co/f8Q0bPrdUVhttps://t.co/Txw68szGAM
— Tanvi Madan (@tanvi_madan) February 26, 2023
FinSec: "Both Russia & China took a position that finance mins & central bank govs...they shld not get into global geopolitical issues...all other 18 countries felt that the war has got implications for the global economy..."
As per sources, New Delhi, which has largely maintained neutrality during the ongoing conflict, was trying to establish a consensus to include neutral words.
While the US-led western coalition wanted the joint statement to refer to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as “war,” India wanted the conflict to be called a “crisis” or a “challenge.”
Whereas Russia refers to the Ukraine crisis as a “special military operation,” instead of a war or an invasion.
France Refuses to “Step Back”
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire stated that France would not accept a joint statement that was a “step back” from the Bali G20 summit’s declaration denouncing the Ukraine war in November.
If we want to have a strong & sustainable world for the next decade we need to have this war to be over: French minister Bruno Le Maire in Bengaluru on Ukraine war pic.twitter.com/LTTpDLw6Bx
— ANI (@ANI) February 24, 2023
In the declaration, the statement read, “Most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine,” noting, “There were other views and different assessments of the situation and sanctions.”
“Either we have the same language or we do not sign on the final communique,” Le Maire told reporters on Friday.
Pointing out that India “is playing a key role,” he remarked, “India is in the best position to have this strong communique that we are all waiting for.”
Likewise, on Friday, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner, opined, “We need absolute clarity, this is a war initiated by Putin.”
#G20India Presidency has released the Chair’s Summary & Outcome Document of the 1st #FMCBG Meeting, Bengaluru@FinMinIndia @RBI
— G20 India (@g20org) February 25, 2023
Full text 📑: https://t.co/9zncTpAHKk pic.twitter.com/KjZubYsoDw
However, in the end, a joint statement was not issued, and instead a G20 Chair’s Summary and Outcome Document was published, carrying the same wording as the Bali declaration with respect to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, stressing that Russia and China did not agree with the point.
Russia Calls out West for Being “Anti-Russian”
In a statement on Saturday, the Russian Foreign Ministry accused the collective West of using the G20 summit in an “anti-Russian, purely confrontational manner.”
Saying that the US, the EU and the G7 “continue to keep up their paranoid attempts to isolate Russia and shift the blame for the provoked problems in the field of international security and the global economy onto it,” it added that the West “once again disrupted the adoption of collective decisions” via “open blackmail and diktat.”
Russia slams the west over G20 Finance ministers meet, sayings it was involved in "blackmail", points that the grouping is an economic forum and should not intrude into security sphere: pic.twitter.com/J8d1RxOTzz
— Sidhant Sibal (@sidhant) February 26, 2023
It called on the West “to abandon its destructive course as soon as possible, to realise the objective realities of a multipolar world, and to start building normal relations with new centers of power in the international arena,” adding that the G20 “should remain an economic forum and not intrude into the security sphere.”
Yellen Calls Russian Officials “Complicit” in Ukraine War Atrocities
In her opening remarks at the G20 summit to mark the Ukraine war’s first anniversary on Friday, US Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen asserted that the Russian officials present at the meeting were “complicit” in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “atrocities” in Ukraine.
As I made clear at the G20 today, the unprovoked, brutal war that Russia launched a year ago has inflicted immense suffering on the Ukrainian people and has caused harm throughout the world. Ending it is the single best thing we could do for the global economy. pic.twitter.com/VOr4tncbS4
— Secretary Janet Yellen (@SecYellen) February 24, 2023
“They bear responsibility for the lives and livelihoods being taken in Ukraine and the harm caused globally,” she added, further urging her G20 counterparts to “redouble their efforts to support Ukraine and restrict Russia’s capacity to wage war.”