G20 summit: US and Europe paper over divisions

G20 summit: US and Europe paper over divisions

by Chris Marsden and Bill Van Auken

Global Research, April 3, 2009
World Socialist Web Site

The G20 summit concluded Thursday having failed to adopt the principal demands of either the US and Britain, which came to the London gathering advocating coordinated global fiscal stimulus, or a European bloc led by Germany and France, which called for international regulation of major financial institutions.

Instead, the two sides papered over their differences with a nine-page communiqué, much of which consisted of high-flown phrases such as the affirmation that all the assembled heads of state "agreed on the desirability of a new global consensus on the key values and principles that will promote sustainable economic activity."

There was also the claim"echoed by virtually all of the media"that the summit had agreed to "an additional $1.1 trillion programme of support to restore credit, growth and jobs in the world economy."

The Financial Times of London carried one of the few reports that treated this pledge with the skepticism it deserved. "The failure of the G20 summit was too painful for world leaders to contemplate and [British Prime Minister Gordon] Brown ended the meeting with a blizzard of large numbers to disguise the fact that leaders had not agreed to a further additional fiscal stimulus as Mr. Obama and Mr. Brown had wanted."

The newspaper also noted, "Much of the $1,100 billion pledged to help the world recover from recession represented existing commitments or pledges of future funds that had not been pinned down."

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