By Gleb Bryanski
ROME, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Russia opposes attempts by some G20 countries to add issues like climate change to the agenda of the April summit in London and wants it to focus on the financial crisis, a senior finance ministry official said on Saturday. Andrei Bokarev, Russia's G8 and G20 deputy sherpa, said at a G7 finance ministers' meeting Rome that Britain, which currently chairs the G20, is trying to push climate change onto the agenda of the London summit, but most G20 countries objected.
"The majority of countries, both developed and developing, do not support this idea. It was not reflected in the November G20 declaration (from Washington)," he told Reuters. "It does not correspond to the anti-crisis format of the summit."
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said this month he was not satisfied with preparations for the summit, had not received any fresh ideas from the G20 and questioned the need to attend.
"We need to be sure that we can make decisions leading to concrete results," said Bokarev, adding that the enlargement of the Financial Stability Forum and reform of the International Monetary Fund would be such results but were not yet certain.
"It would be right to have a more narrow agenda and have concrete decisions so that people not directly involved in the process could understand what we mean to do and where we need to go," Bokarev said.
Some countries wanted to discuss protectionism and trade barriers but Russia thought this did not make sense unless there were a mechanism to stop countries from taking protectionist measures, said the Russian official.
"The G20 declaration and even today's G7 communique mentioned protectionism but it does not impede countries, including the ones which signed up, from raising new barriers," Bokarev said, conceding that Russia was also to blame here.
(Reporting by Gleb Bryanski; editing by Stephen Brown)