G20 china_web

Strengthening the G20 system
KEY TAKEAWAYS
The G20 has improved cooperation
among central banks
Decisions made by the G20 helped
end the financial and economic crisis
Enrico
Letta
Former Prime Minister
Italy
Enrico Letta is the Dean of the
Paris School of International
Affairs (PSIA) at Sciences Po in
Paris and President of the Jacques
Delors Institute. He was the Prime
Minister of Italy from April 2013
to February 2014. He served as
Minister for European Union
Affairs (1998–99), as Minister for
Industry, Commerce and Crafts
(January–April 2000), as Minister
for Industry, Commerce and Crafts
and Foreign Trade (2000–01) and
as Undersecretary of State to the
Prime Minister of the government
led by Romano Prodi from 2006
to 2008. Between 2001 and 2015
he was member of the Italian
Parliament, except between 2004
and 2006 when he was member of
the European Parliament.
@enricoletta
The history
of the G20
The G20 summit is an international institution born out of a
direct and immediate response to a global crisis, which is rare,
writes Enrico Letta, former Prime Minister of Italy
It takes a long, sometimes very long,
time to organise or even reorganise
a multilateral framework.
In the case of the G20, it would be
wrong to say that there was nothing
new about it. A level of cooperation
between representatives of the members’
central banks and finance ministers already
existed. Today’s G20 has very little in
common with the highly technical meetings
that resulted in no real, serious political
commitments before 2008, though.
The G20 summit is the fruit of the
economic and financial crisis that began in
2008. The crisis was so overwhelming that
it forced leaders to resolve a problem that
had been lingering for almost 20 years.
At the beginning of the 1990s the
international system felt the need to
increase the involvement of emerging
powers in the global decisions made by
the United Nations. The project to reform
the United Nations Security Council to
leave behind post-war stability centred on
230 G20 China: The Hangzhou Summit • September 2016 G7G20.com