The economy today
Is the G20 still a global governance body?
Audio 03:42
Indonesia will lead the presidency of the G20 in 2022. © AFP
By: Dominique Baillard Follow
3 mins
On the sidelines of the spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank, a Finance G20 is being held today under high diplomatic tension: Russia will be well represented despite the opposition of Westerners.
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And first from the United States: Janet Yellen, Secretary of the Treasury, has indicated that her participation in the G20 will be selective, without further details.
On the other hand, the Russian Minister of Finance, Anton Silouanov, will lead his country's delegation well.
In his presence, it is difficult to see today how the participants will be able to discuss the means of improving the effect of the sanctions against Russia as desired by the United States.
The exchanges seem doomed to failure since we already know that there will be no final press release published at the end of the meeting.
Russia still not ousted from the proceedings
With its military intervention in Ukraine, Russia is gradually being excluded from all global consultation bodies: it was excluded from the G7, the group of rich countries, in 2014 because of the annexation of Crimea and it almost suffered the same fate this year at the G20.
But in this much larger club, representing 80% of the world economy, Moscow has received support from China, Indonesia, which holds the presidency, South Africa and Saudi Arabia.
The US initiative fractured the G20.
With Western countries on one side and the major emerging countries on the other.
Janet Yellen has planned bilateral talks with her South African and Saudi counterparts, we will see if that is enough to reconcile the positions of the two camps.
Can the G20 survive the war in Ukraine?
The question has no obvious answer at the moment.
But the fact that it is asked is in itself very worrying.
Even if they condemn the Russian military aggression in Ukraine, observers wonder about the future of an organization if it is no longer a place of discussion and consensus-building.
The G20 proved to be hyper effective in 2008 at the time of the financial crisis.
Since then, it has become a body of global governance with concrete results.
Like the 15% global business tax approved this summer in Paris, the fight against global warming and debt reduction.
Over-indebtedness crises to fear
They were authorized to temporarily suspend the payment of interest.
In the process, the G20 tackled the restructuring of the debt.
With China's rise to power among lenders and the explosion of private creditors, it is necessary to find new methods of resolution at the global level to complete the work carried out until now by the Paris club.
Given that the war aggravates the economic and financial difficulties of the most fragile countries, crises of over-indebtedness are to be feared, the IMF indicated yesterday.
There is therefore an urgent need to find common ground on these issues.
The G20 is more essential than ever to find collective answers.
► IN BRIEF
A setback for Netflix: the company lost 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter, the first in more than ten years.
The hardest part is yet to come for the video platform: the bleeding should worsen in the second quarter with two million fewer customers.
Netflix stock immediately fell 25% in electronic trading.
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