WASHINGTON: President Nicolas Sarkozy of France left the summit meeting of 20 nations on the financial crisis last weekend in Washington declaring that it had changed the world. Then he went home and announced that he was holding another summit meeting in a few weeks on the same topic.
Sarkozy did not tell President George W. Bush or other leaders about his plans while he was here, according to European and American officials.
A senior European diplomat said that he found the whole exercise "amazing," while an American official said "amazing" was a charitable description.
French officials said the Paris meeting, which is scheduled for Jan. 8 and 9 is to be co-hosted by the former British prime minister Tony Blair, was merely a conference - one intended to bring together political leaders and prominent thinkers to discuss issues like globalization and the values of capitalism.
But the dispute epitomizes what has become an increasingly tense trans-Atlantic contest over summitry and the global economy. While much of this is posturing and preening by ambitious leaders, it also reflects an underlying debate about how to fix a fractured world economy.
"Sarkozy claimed he put a bell on the American cat," said Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. "He said the U.S. had agreed to a whole range of negotiations. But he didn't come in and negotiate these things. Then he went home and claimed victory."
Sarkozy has made clear that he is determined to keep the initiative on what the French regard as a long-overdue discussion of American-style capitalism and its excesses.
After the meeting concluded on Saturday, he was not shy about proclaiming that the era of American hegemony in world finance was over. "America is the No. 1 power in the world," he declared. "Is it the only power? No, it isn't. We are in a new world."
On the other side is Bush, playing out his final weeks in power but unwilling to allow the Europeans, particularly the French, to dominate the debate over how to respond to the crisis.
After the summit meeting, Bush made a point of stating that he did not think any one meeting was likely to change the fundamentals of the global economy.
Against that backdrop, the timing of Sarkozy's hastily convened next meeting has ruffled feathers, not just in the United States but elsewhere as well, because the Group of 20 agreed to meet again by the end of April.
The leaders assigned working groups to tackle 47 regulatory and economic issues before then. At the next meeting, President-elect Barack Obama, who was absent last weekend, would have a seat at the table. But Obama will not be in office during the Paris meeting, insuring that the participants discuss the future of capitalism when the world's leading practitioner of it is still in a political transition.
Aides to Sarkozy said the January meeting was an informal exercise and had no connection to the Group of 20.
"It's nothing to do with the G-20; it's normal that we didn't mention this," said one French official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. "It's a joint idea of Tony Blair and Nicolas Sarkozy. They have had it on their minds for a while."
Sarkozy was the first to propose the summit meeting to Bush. American officials said that it was Bush's idea to expand the guest list to the G-20, which includes China, Brazil, India and other emerging countries, rather than limit it to the usual gathering of seven industrialized countries, plus, at times, Russia.
The two leaders also had differing interpretations of what happened at the meeting. Sarkozy portrayed it as a landmark gathering, saying, "Europe for the first time expressed its clear determination."
"Never ever," he added, had the Americans been willing to negotiate on the kinds of radical regulatory changes that were on the table in Washington.
By contrast, Bush noted that the leaders had reaffirmed the importance of free markets, free trade and the primacy of national regulation.
Katrin Bennhold contributing reporting from Paris.
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