Several ministers walked out during the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) meeting in Washington, DC, Thursday as Russia’s financial minster spoke, the Danish financial minster told CNN.
“It was the Nordic, Baltic countries that started the walkout but many countries followed,” Nicolai Wammen told CNN’s Richard Quest.
“I saw colleagues from all over the world sending a very clear message to President Putin and to Russia that we will under no circumstances accept the war on Ukraine and we stand firmly behind the Ukrainian people,” Wammen said.
Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister and head of the IMFC Nadia Calvino told Quest that the meeting was “not business as usual” and that “different countries different members expressed their views in a different manner, but overall this has been a very productive meeting.”
Following a meeting of the IMFC, a joint communique is normally issued, however, for the first time in history it was not as Russia refused to approve it.
Despite this, Calvino said that the outcome of the meeting was still positive and “when a consensus based organization sees one country walk away, that makes it impossible to have a unanimously agreed communique but that doesn’t mean there is no agreement on the substantive issues.”
