Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey took part in a walkout of finance leaders who left an International Monetary Fund meeting in Bangkok in protest at Russian involvement, leaving the session when Russian finance minister Anton Siluanov addressed the group in Russian. Bailey was joined by counterparts from France and Germany and a number of Scandinavian and Baltic countries, and the Bank of England confirmed that he took part. Bundesbank president Joachim Nagel said nearly half of all delegates joined the departure.
The committee chair tried to close the incident down. Saudi finance minister Mohammed al-Jadaan, who chairs the IMF’s steering committee, acknowledged the walkout and said the participants had come for a reason and achieved it, pointing to a chair’s statement agreed by all members. That statement, published on this site yesterday, warned that buffers have eroded and resilience cannot be taken for granted. The agreement of the text and the walkout from the room are both true, and together they describe the committee’s actual condition.
Positions outside the room diverged openly. Germany had warned against efforts to bring Russia back onto the international stage, and one European diplomat told Reuters the Ukraine war is existential for Europe and relations with Russia cannot be normalised. The United States took the other side: Treasury undersecretary Erin Browne told Reuters Washington supported Russia’s presence despite European concerns. Siluanov had also attended a G20 finance ministers meeting this year.
Read alongside the weekend’s other Russia files, the walkout marks the European line. In Washington, President Trump’s waiver of the Graham Act sanctions drew bipartisan criticism and a State Department defence built on energy market strain. In Bangkok, Europe’s finance leadership answered the normalisation question physically, by leaving, while still signing the common statement. Both facts will matter when the IMF next has to write a sentence about the war that every member can accept.