Posted at 14:02 09 September 2009 by Tom Barry | Comments[0]
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Tom Barry
First Secretary Economics Washington
Wednesday 09 September, 2009
The G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors met over the weekend in London. Their full communiqué (pdf) is on the G20 website. As a veteran reader of these communiqués, I was delighted to see that they managed to squeeze everything onto one side of paper.
It is customary after a meeting for the media to focus on which countries got most of what they wanted in the communiqué. But, as I’ve written before, no matter how high the level, a meeting is just a meeting. They only have consequences if people go away and put what’s been agreed into action. This is precisely what my colleagues in HM Treasury, at other finance ministries, at the IMF and at the Financial Stability Board have been doing.
That's why I was pleased - despite my preference for one-pagers - to see a twenty-three page annex (large pdf) on progress since the Washington and London Summits. The annex illustrates how the international community is progressing against the objectives it set for itself. For instance, they promised in Action 41:
"Establishment of the remaining supervisory colleges for significant cross-border firms by June 2009".
And the conclusion:
"Supervisory colleges have now been established for more than thirty large complex financial institutions identified by the FSF as needing college arrangements".
It may be technical, but the list of achievements ranges widely, from tax havens to credit rating agencies to restoring lending .
The G20 is not only about the big declaration following a meeting. It is about relentless follow-up. Those 92 Actions on which the G20 is making progress show that international co-operation can really deliver results.
The conclusions of the weekend's meeting now go forward to the Pittsburgh Summit in late September.
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