“It’s not only the Europeans who think that. We all think that it must end as soon as possible,” French Finance Minister Roland Lescure, who chaired the meeting, told reporters during a press conference after discussions concluded Tuesday.
“We all know that the sooner we reopen the Hormuz Strait, the sooner the economic aspect of this geopolitical conflict will be resolved, the better off we will all be,” he added.
But the U.S. laid blame for Europe’s economic predicament on national governments.
“It’s [a] tired old tactic to try and blame their government’s abysmal approval ratings on external forces, rather than looking inward. They made themselves irrelevant,” a U.S. official told POLITICO, responding specifically to criticism from Germany.
Finance ministers from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States took part in the two-day discussions focused on trade imbalances, combating financial crime and regulating new artificial intelligence models such as Mythos.
Ministers also discussed the financial fallout of the Middle East conflict, which has triggered a surge in energy and fuel prices and an economic slowdown across Europe. The European Commission is expected to downgrade EU growth estimates on Thursday — a stark contrast to the U.S., which is less vulnerable to higher energy prices.
