Posted at 12:31 27 August 2009 by Tom Barry | Comments[0]
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Tom Barry
First Secretary Economics Washington
Thursday 27 August, 2009
With August already drawing to a close, the G20 finance ministers meeting is less than two weeks away. It will be held in London on 4-5 September with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, chairing the event. Over the summer, I’ve been asked several times about how finance ministers meetings interact with the G20 Summit process. Here’s my best shot at how it’s going to work.
First, some background. G20 finance ministers have met since 1999 during the Asian crisis and have a well-established process. The chairmanship rotates annually – South Africa chaired in 2007, Brazil in 2008, the UK in 2009 and South Korea will take over in 2010.
The practice of the G20 meeting at the heads of government level only started in Washington last year, and continued in London in April. The next Summit will be in Pittsburgh on 24 and 25 September. Each time, the hosts have chaired the meeting. Unlike in (say) the G8, there is no well established rotational order among members. So far, decisions about who would host have been made by agreement among the participants.
So, the London finance ministers meeting will be chaired by us (the Brits) and the Pittsburgh Summit will be chaired by President Obama.
The work the finance ministers do will obviously be crucial preparation for the Summit itself. We expect them to agree the key economic and financial inputs for the Summit. And they were also tasked by the heads in London with delivering many of the things agreed there, such as reform of international financial institutions and the international financial system.
Following the finance ministers meeting, the process will be handed over to the heads’ sherpas to prepare the final agenda for Pittsburgh.
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