Eurozone Crisis Prevailed Over Mexican Los Cabos Summit

Business

November 18th, 11:25am

Madrid, Moscow - Sahwqi Rayes, Raed Jaber

The G20 Los Cabos summit in Mexico focused on controlling the Eurozone crisis (Asharq Al-Awsat).

From the French Cannes, the world’s attention turned to the coastal city of Los Cabos in Mexico, awaiting the outcome of the G20 leaders’ seventh summit, amid concerns over the expansion of the Eurozone economic crisis. The closing meeting unanimously agreed on the necessity to control and resolve the crisis, but failed to find a unified method that would serve this purpose. In a press conference at the end of the summit, Mexican President Felipe Calderon announced that the leaders of the group reached consensus on a package of issues, which included long-term economic development, pumping more financial resources into the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and combating trade protectionism. Consecutively, the IMF announced pledges of an additional $456 billion, including substantial new pledges from the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) who met on the sidelines of the global meeting. Regarding the European crisis, the closing statement of the G20 Summit 2012 stated that the members of the Eurozone would take all necessary measures to ensure the stability of the euro, improve financial markets, and break the barrier between banks and heads of state. From the shores of Los Cabos to the snow of Saint Petersburg in 2013, Russia put forward proposals that would prevent the outbreak of new global economic and financial crises, such as those occurring in Europe, including reducing the budget deficit, limiting the size of state debt in developed countries, eliminating the negative points in financial regulation, and addressing the lack of resources. While praising the steps taken by the European Union to enhance financial stability, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed restoring stable and balanced global economic growth. This approach formed the basis of what was called the “Petersburg plan” for ensuring economic growth, which pointed to the need for comprehensive structural reforms to ensure long-term stable growth. Participants also discussed the need to reform the IMF to increase the shares and votes of developing countries - an issue that Russia later complained was not properly implemented. The Petersburg summit was not able to produce major practical results because of the sharp differences over Syria at that time, especially after the chemical weapons attack.

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/2632506/eurozone-crisis-prevailed-over-mexican-los-cabos-summit