COUNTRYSpec

G20

Economic

In September 1999 the finance ministers of the G7 announced a wider forum. No head of government attended for nine years, and the leaders first met in Washington on 14 and 15 November 2008. What the forum produces is a communiqué agreed by consensus, and what it hands on each year is the chair. Everything it agrees is carried out somewhere else.

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19 countries

Common questions

Questions about G20

Which countries are in the G20?

Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Türkiye, the United Kingdom and the United States. Two members are not countries and so are not filed here: the European Union, which has sat in the group since 1999, and the African Union, welcomed as a permanent member by the New Delhi declaration of 9 September 2023.

Why does the G20 have more members than its name?

Because the name counts the states that were invited in 1999 and the European Union together, and the African Union was added on top of that on 9 September 2023. The name has never been changed to follow the arithmetic. This catalogue files 19 country records, since a hub here holds countries and the two unions have pages of their own as groups.

When was the G20 founded, and by whom?

The finance ministers of the G7 announced it in September 1999, and the finance ministers and central bank governors met for the first time in Berlin on 15 and 16 December 1999. Nothing was signed. The joining dates recorded against members in this catalogue fall on 25, 26 and 29 September 1999, and most member records carry no date at all, because there was no instrument to date.

Does the G20 have a headquarters or a secretariat?

Neither. The chair changes hands each December and the country holding it runs the year: it convenes the meetings, sets the agenda and hosts the summit. Members are sorted into five groups of at most four so that consecutive chairs come from different parts of the roster, and the holder works with the troika, meaning the previous chair and the next one.

Is Spain a member of the G20?

No. Spain has attended since the Washington summit of November 2008 and its foreign ministry describes it as a permanent guest invitee, which allows it to take part in the leaders' summits and the regular meetings. Since the group has no founding text, the status is a habit of invitation rather than a rank of membership defined anywhere.

Are G20 agreements binding on the members?

No. A declaration is agreed by consensus and commits nobody in law. What follows depends on each member's own legislature, or on a body with a treaty behind it acting on the request: the International Monetary Fund on quotas, the Financial Stability Board on financial regulation, the World Trade Organization and the OECD on their own subjects. The group writes the sentence and something else carries it.

Sources