IMF Chief Wants Russia Back in G8

The international community functions best when all its members, Russia included, are working together to achieve good results, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said Thursday.

The G8 format ensured the best results for the group of the world’s leading industrialized nations, Lagarde said in remarks, carried live by Germany’s ARD television on Thursday.

Christine Lagarde is taking part in a meeting of G7 finance ministers in Dresden, Germany.

“I believe that the financial G7 has essentially been a strictly seven-nation club… Russian representatives occasionally joined in, but only rarely… However, the international community functions best only when all its members, Russia included, sit together at one table working hand in hand and achieving good results. I hope that, sooner or later, we’ll see this happening,” Christine Lagarde said.

The Group of Eight reverted to its previous, seven-member, format in 2014 when, in the wake of Crimea’s reunification with Russia, the G7 leaders decided to stay away from their planned summit in Sochi and, instead, gathered in Brussels without Russia.

The G7 comprises Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.