G-20 Deeply Disappointed by Delays in IMF Reform

The 20 richest countries in the world, which still include Spain, sent a message to the United States on Friday over its Congress’s refusal to approve the reform of International Monetary Fund (IMF) quotas, meant to give a more powerful voice to emerging countries. The ministers of finance and central bank governors of G-20 members have said they are “deeply disappointed with the continued delay” in implementing the new balance of power agreed to in 2010, a system that should have come into force two years ago.

The G-20 statement, written after the conclusion of meetings that began on Thursday in Washington, also discusses the situation in Ukraine: “We are monitoring the economic situation in Ukraine, mindful of any risk to economic and financial stability, and welcome the IMF’s recent engagement with Ukraine as the authorities work to undertake meaningful reforms.” The IMF has recently said that “rising geopolitical uncertainties” between Russia, Ukraine and the West have not yet had significant repercussions for the rest of the world. The Ukrainian economy is in a desperate situation. Its currency has depreciated 38 percent against the dollar so far this year, the worst performance among the 170 currencies analyzed by the Bloomberg agency.

Its government needs 21 trillion euro this year and the next to stabilize its finances, and is finalizing an agreement with the IMF to obtain a loan for an amount that could reach close to 13,000 euro. “The situation in Ukraine highlights the important role of the IMF as the world’s first responder to financial crises,” said the G-20 statement. Its meetings, in which strategies for spurring growth were discussed with an emphasis on the “critical importance that investment plays,” have also drawn attention to the difficulties the United States and its European allies face in punishing Russia, isolating it economically and politically.

Although Moscow has been temporarily excluded from the G-8, all the G-20 did was to sit its representative between Australia and the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition — a group of African leaders created to promote growth and fight poverty — during a meeting on Thursday night. The West cannot impose its rules unilaterally here. And it was Barack Obama who said during the Pittsburgh summit in 2009 that from then on, the G-20 was going to take the lead in coordinating global economic policy.