First, the good news. The meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors made rapid progress on an issue that had threatened to overshadow November’s meeting of heads of government: the largely symbolic but politically important issue of control over the International Monetary Fund.
As for the rest of the meeting, proposals by the US certainly put new issues in play, but early resistance – plus the fate of earlier, not dissimilar, initiatives – means that observers of the process remain wary of their impact.
The announcement on IMF reform represented a good pay-off for a gamble by the US earlier this year to force the issue by using a procedural manoeuvre to force a November 1 deadline.