G20: India releases Chair Summary as consensus on official statement's language proves elusive

At the conclusion of the finance ministers and central bank governors meeting, India issues Chair's Summary due to lack of consensus on official G20 statement.

India, holding the G20 presidency, issued a nine-page Chair's Summary as consensus on characterizing the Russia-Ukraine conflict eludes official communique.

All G20 finance ministers and central bank governors agreed with 15 of the 17 paragraphs of the summary, with the two contentious portions being paragraphs 3 and 4, which were adapted from the G20 Bali Leaders' Declaration.

Representatives from Russia and China disagreed with these two paragraphs, which dealt with the war between Russia and Ukraine and were the only sections of the summary to mention the word 'war'.

"Most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed that it is causing immense human suffering and exacerbating existing fragilities in the global economy – constraining growth, increasing inflation, disrupting supply chains, heightening energy and food insecurity, and elevating financial stability risks. There were other views and different assessments of the situation and sanctions," the third paragraph of the summary said.

"The peaceful resolution of conflicts, efforts to address crises, as well as diplomacy and dialogue, are vital. Today's era must not be of war," the fourth paragraph added.

The issuance of the Chair's Summry comes after countries from the G7 bloc and others put their foot down and said Russia must be condemned in the official G20 statement for its "unjust" war. Over the last couple of days, representatives from European countries such as France said they would oppose any step-back from the language used in the aforementioned Bali declaration.