From the start of the Covid-19 crisis, creditor countries granted a six-month moratorium on the debt of the poorest countries, which is extended until July 2021. Since last May, 39 countries have done so. demand including 26 African countries.
This Friday, at a meeting of G20 finance ministers, the creditor countries should agree on a common framework for the treatment of the debt.
There could thus be "on a case-by-case basis", requests for "rescheduling, reduction", or even "debt cancellation", with principles common to all creditors, which would avoid unilateral agreements, sometimes unfair.
If this framework is adopted, it would be a "historic" decision, confides a source within the French Ministry of Finance, because for the first time all creditors - public and private - would agree on the principles of "comparability of treatment" and "transparency".
Since 1956, 22 countries including France, Germany and the United States, grouped together in the "Paris Club" have already adopted this kind of common framework, but until now, other creditors, in particular private banks but also and especially China, discussed separately.
However, China is the biggest creditor on the planet.
This sometimes led to unfair negotiations, sort of debt traps ... Sri Lanka, for example, paid the price in 2017 and had to grant a concession to the Chinese state-owned China Merchants Port Holdings on the Hambantota port.
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