Catalogue description Cabinet Office: International Economic Conference of Genoa, Minutes and Memoranda

Loosely chronological within subject arrangement

The Genoa Conference was held in April-May 1922 to discuss wide-ranging international diplomatic and economic issues. Most major powers, with the exceptions of USA and Soviet Union, attended. The conference was divided into four specialist sub-commissions; Financial, Economic and Transportation and Political. The latter was probably the most significant because it dealt with the critical issues of German reparations and confiscated foreign property in Russia.

Some participants had intended the Conference to lay the ground for a new international order, settling the issue of reparations and establishing a new European non-aggression pact. This hope was undermined after it had become known that Russia and Germany had signed a treaty at Rapallo on 16 April 1922, re-establishing political contacts. This led to the exclusion of Germany from the Conference; France and Belgium later withdrew after the failure to agree a policy on confiscated property in Soviet Russia. The final communiqué on this issue was signed by Britain, Poland, Italy, Japan, Sweden, Roumania and Switzerland, after which the Conference broke up.