The G20 has a mixed record in co-ordination of global economic policy but there was robust agreement on one point at this weekend’s meeting of finance ministers in Mexico City: the rest of the world would not stump up more money for the International Monetary Fund until the eurozone did more to help itself.
That view was so widely held among non-eurozone countries going into the meeting, including the US, the UK and Japan, that the drafting of a communiqué was unusually smooth. A rough first draft was agreed at midnight on Saturday – by which time most G20 negotiations are only just getting started.
But the price of a quiet weekend for finance ministers, many of whom did not stick around in Mexico City for more than 24 hours, was a limit to their ambitions. The draft communiqué says the G20 will consider providing extra funds to the IMF in April depending on how much the eurozone has done to boost its own defences against financial contagion.