G20 Fun Facts from The Guardian
Everything you always wanted to know about the G20 gathering in London.
From The Guardian:
Those key G20 questions answered
The big issue is: can they agree a plan to rebuild the world economy? But
there are other pressing questions: Who should we be watching? What’s
in the Downing St goodie bag? And who’s the new Carla Bruni?
1. Why 20?
Um, it’s not. In a nutshell, Gordon Brown has invited his fellow G20
members (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany,
India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South
Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the US and whoever happens to hold the
rotating EU presidency, currently the Czechs), plus Spain, the
Netherlands, the respective chairs of the New Partnership for Africa’s
Development, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the African
Union Commission, and the president of the EU Commission. Not to
forget, of course, the heads of the UN, World Bank and International
Monetary Fund. By my reckoning, that makes 29 if you include the hosts
(that’s us). The G20’s regular meetings are for finance ministers and
central bankers from what are described as “systemically important
industrialised and developing economies”; this one is for the leaders
of those economies because the world’s finances, in case you hadn’t
noticed, are in something of a state.
JH2. Why Spain?
Spain battled to be a G20 member, and won
That’s a very good question. Ditto, the Netherlands. Certainly,
Spain now has a pretty serious economy (the world’s eighth biggest, in
fact) but, as something of a latecomer to both democracy and the
membership of major international institutions, it is not part of the
G20. What seems to have happened is that when the first big
we’re-in-meltdown-what-are-we-going-to-do-about-it jamboree was held in
Washington late last year, France found itself with two seats (as a G20
member, and as then president of the EU). Spain and the Netherlands
lobbied furiously for the spare one, and Spain won. Then the
Netherlands sulked, and because it has a financial sector out of all
proportion to its size, everyone took pity. And, of course, it was only
fair that everyone who attended the Washington party should get an
invite to this one. So there you are.
JH
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