There are 15 things missing from the Group of 20's statement on the 110-billion euro financial rescue of Greece by the country's partners in the euro zone and the International Monetary Fund.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and his counterparts from Britain, France, South Korea and the United States Monday endorsed the "strong" economic program, saying it "merits the support of the international community" and pledging their own support for "expeditious" delivery of the IMF's portion of the bailout.
"Determined and consistent implementation of the program by Greece, combined with this exceptional assistance from the member states of the euro zone and IMF, will help restore financial stability in Greece and promote market confidence," the statement said.
Nothing wrong with that. Mr. Flaherty and U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner urged European leaders and the IMF to work quickly in resolving Greece's financial situation two weekends ago at meetings of the G20 and the IMF in Washington. With an unprecedented international bailout in place a week later, it was only fitting they support it.
The odd thing about the statement was the signatures -- or lack thereof.
Mr. Flaherty, Mr. Geithner, British Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde and South Korea's minister of strategy and finance, Yoon Jeung-Hyun, weighed in on Greece as "past, present and future" chairs of the G20.
What about the other 15? According to Mr. Flaherty, it was just too difficult to corral them all.
"It's hard to get 20 countries to agree rapidly to a statement," Mr. Flaherty said in an interview last night in Cambridge, Ontario, where he kicked off the Centre for International Governance Innovation's latest policy conference with a dinner speech. "We were able to get a significant group of countries to agree fairly quickly. We wanted to get something out there because of the need to show support for what had been negotiated in Greece."
As the bailout package came together on Sunday, Mr. Flaherty said "efforts were made by email and phone to get as many as possible to sign on." Many were willing to sign the statement, but logistics prevented unanimity. The "past, present and former" grouping was the only one that Mr. Flaherty and others could make work in the short time they allowed themselves to deliver a message on Greece.
In some ways, this shows institutional maturity. International investors tend to sniff at such statements, dismissing them as anodyne and hallow. But you can bet these same investors would see meaning if no statement was issued, opening the door to question the international community's resolve to containing trouble. The Group of Seven would often seek to reassure financial markets at times of stress. Now that the G20 is in charge of the global economy, it will face pressure to do the same.
It has a little work to do.
"There's a lesson there for the G20," Mr. Flaherty said. "We need to work on how we can communicate quickly and get agreements quickly on actions that we want to approve," Mr. Flaherty said. "Many were willing to do it, but not everyone was communicating as well as everyone else, so we need to work on a better method. I don't know any magic method. I'm not an expert in communications, but surely we must be able to communicate more efficiently."