G-20 to serve full plate of ideas

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen
• Videos

By David R. Sands

There may be as many agendas as there are chairs at the table when President Bush convenes this Saturday's summit of leaders of the world's major industrial and developing economies to deal with the fallout from the world financial crisis.

Leaders from the Group of 20 nations are likely to agree that governments around the world must do more to stimulate their economies and keep their markets open to trade and investment.

But President Bush -- with President-elect Barack Obama looking over his shoulder -- is resisting calls from French President Nicolas Sarkozy and other European leaders for more intrusive government regulation of the market and calls from China, Russia and other "emerging markets" for an overhaul of the major international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

Mr. Sarkozy, a prime mover behind the summit, has insisted that the G-20 leaders must "rewrite the rule of the game." British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is pushing a plan for international regulators to oversee the globe's 30 biggest financial firms, called the crisis that inspired the summit "the birth pangs of a new global order."

Emerging economic superpowers Brazil, Russia, India and China -- the so-called BRIC bloc -- say they are victims of a crisis caused by market and regulatory failures in U.S. and European housing and banking markets and are demanding a bigger say in the debates in the leading international financial institutions.

The BRIC countries do not intend to be "mere coffee drinkers" at the Washington summit, Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega said last week.

Analysts said Mr. Bush's opposition to more radical moves and his lame-duck status make it unlikely that the daylong summit will produce major breakthroughs.

"There is no doubt that the European expectations are much too high," said Steven Schrage, a specialist in international business issues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

See related stories: G-20 takes the spotlight amid crisis; G-20 to weigh global banking oversight and D.C. is ground zero for summit, protests, rockers

Said Robert Weissman, executive director of Essential Action, an advocacy group that tracks development issues, "It's a fantasy to suppose that the Europeans or anyone can impose a global financial regulatory system on the Americans. That's just not going to happen."