2008 Washington G20 Summit
The G-20 Summit in Washington 2008 (English G-20 Leaders Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy , in German about "G-20 Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy ") was an extraordinary summit on 14th and 15th November 2008 in view of the financial crisis from 2007 with the participation of the group of the twenty most important industrialized and emerging countries (G-20) as well as Spain , the Netherlands , the Czech Republic , the IMF and the World Bank . In the German-speaking world, it is usually referred to as the global financial summit for short . Since some politicians and economists were hoping for a new Bretton Woods system (see Bretton Woods II regime ), the summit was occasionally also referred to as Bretton Woods II in the international media .
The world financial summit was the first meeting of the G20 states at the level of heads of state and government; previously these had only ever met at the level of finance ministers. The summit was initiated by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown . At the meeting of the G8 finance ministers on October 11, US President George W. Bush stressed the importance of the next G20 summit in order to find a solution to the financial and economic crisis.
Before the summit, the exact composition of the participating states was disputed. Spain in particular , which is not part of the G-20, tried to get an additional invitation. This was justified by the fact that, on the one hand, Spain was the eighth largest industrialized country in the world and, on the other hand, had successfully prevented a banking crisis in its own country due to its traditionally strict financial market regulation and was therefore considered a role model. While numerous countries in Europe and Latin America supported the Spanish application, the USA initially rejected them. Ultimately, France - which was both a member of the G-20 and EU Council President at the time of the summit and could therefore claim two seats at the summit - left one of its two seats to Spain. In addition, a Dutch representative from the French delegation and a Czech representative from the Spanish delegation attended the summit. This should allow a certain continuity within the EU, as the Czech Republic would hold the EU Council Presidency in the first half of 2009 .
In the end, however, hardly any binding decisions were made at the summit, only a final communiqué with declarations of intent and proposed measures was published. In particular, the summit stressed the need to avoid protectionism during the crisis . In addition, measures such as the introduction of new economic stimulus programs , global regulation of the financial markets and the fight against tax havens were discussed.
The concrete implementation of these measures was discussed at a follow-up summit that took place on April 1 and 2, 2009 in London .
Web links
- Declaration of the Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy . - Final communiqué
