G20: Brown downplays his once high hopes for unity

The G20 summit in London on April 2 will bring together countries that together represent 90 per cent of the world's GDP and 80 per cent of its trade. But though Gordon Brown has been slavishly preparing for a meeting he believes can create a 'global new deal', he has had to backtrack so far in recent weeks that nobody now seems to be sure what the world’s leaders will achieve when they convene at the ExCel conference centre in Docklands.

Brown's aides are downplaying the summit to the point where it is now only "part of the process" and another summit may be necessary later in the year.
 
There are five main topics for discussion on Thursday: the need for a global approach to the worldwide recession – possibly through fiscal stimulus; the need for the large economies to avoid protectionism; ensuring that developing countries continue to receive generous aid packages during the recession; reforming a bigger, richer IMF; and creating a stringent new system of global regulation for the financial services industry, one that will put an end to tax havens.
 
Already, there is one major disagreement - over fiscal stimulus. While Barack Obama, backed until recently by Brown, wants countries to increase their public spending both this year and in 2010, many European leaders are unwilling to use such a large proportion of GDP on a fiscal stimulus plan. Mirek Topolanek, prime minister of the Czech Republic and current holder of the EU presidency, has condemned the US strategy to come out of recession as "a way to hell".

Brown was clearly advocating the same thing as Obama - tax cuts and a huge increase in public spending - until the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, put the kibosh on his plans last week when he warned that Britain simply could not afford to keep flashing its credit card. Controversially, King chose to say it on the day Brown promised the EU parliament in Strasbourg "the biggest fiscal stimulus the world has ever seen".

Brown's biggest critic had been Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor after she said that "I will not let anyone tell me that we must spend more money" earlier this month. But Nicolas Sarkozy's outburst on Monday that he would not accept "false success [at the summit] with language that sounds good but contains no commitments" has brought the French president - previously seen as a Brown ally - to the top of Downing Street's shit-list.

This lack of consensus on public spending has put Brown's cabinet ministers on the defensive. "This is about trying to tackle an exceptional economic crisis", Foreign Secretary David Miliband is now saying. "This G20 summit was never about writing national budgets."
 
There is also uncertainty about the extent to which restructured financial institutions will cede power to emerging economies like China and Brazil. And, lingering in the background, there are the mass anti-globalisation protests which will take place in London this week. Five activists were arrested in Plymouth today, suspected of plotting to disrupt the summit with explosives.
 
WHAT THEY ARE SAYINGBruce Anderson, the Independent: The other leaders are not coming to London merely for a bit part in a Brown party political broadcast. Most of them want a share in the limelight to further their own domestic political agendas; some of them nurse resentments. Less than three years ago, Mr Brown was delivering condescending lectures to the Germans about the superiority of his way of doing things. Frau Merkel has not forgotten. She did not agree back then; she is even less in agreement now. She is in no mood to buy an ill-thought-out fiscal package from the man who patronised her. Like a lot of people, she might prefer an apology.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, the Daily Telegraph: Now, if the G20 were to convey the world's wrath at Europe's monetary paralysis, we might get somewhere. But Gordon Brown has been sidetracked by fiscal flammery. We are past that stage. Only the printing presses can rescue us, and the ECB [European Central Bank] refuses to print. Tactically, Mr Brown erred gravely by promising "the biggest fiscal stimulus the world has ever seen". It is not his gift, and comes ill from a deadbeat state that cannot sell its own bonds. There again, was it wise for the Czech premier and titular EU president to rubbish Barack Obama's fiscal blitz as the "road to hell"?

Jackie Ashley, the Guardian: Some want world revolution and socialism, others merely hope the G20 succeeds in a fiscal boost. Some want Sir Fred Goodwin and friends dangling from lamp-posts; others want a better system of bank regulation. For many, poverty in developing countries remains the main issue, and they have a morally unanswerable point. But plenty more argue climate change is the world's greatest problem. For them, another era of carbon-fuelled growth would be a further disaster. That's unlikely to be the perspective of the trade unionist whose job is threatened. For now, airport runway protesters and engineering workers march shoulder to shoulder. For less growth? More growth? Less materialism? More?

Martin Jacques, the New Statesman: The G20 meeting will deliver little but, like the first G20 meeting in Washington last November, its symbolism will be enormous. The very fact that it is taking place at all is an admission of the momentous shift in the global balance of economic power from the rich countries to the developing world. If the western countries plus Japan could have sorted out this crisis through the G8, that would certainly have been their preferred route. The cosiness of eight nations (or preferably seven, excluding Russia) with rather similar interests would have made agreement rather easier and, more importantly, would not have implied that in future power would have to be shared with countries possessed of very different interests and histories.

Gideon Rachman, the Financial Times: One thing to watch out for is "green protectionism". The US Congress is discussing the imposition of "carbon tariffs" on countries that do not emulate American efforts to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide. Last week Steven Chu, new energy secretary, seemed to endorse this idea. The new protectionism is always liable to be justified as "retaliation" for the bad faith of foreigners. That is why open disputes at the G20 - or failure at the climate-change negotiations later this year - would be dangerous. Any such failure would lead to recriminations, which would then make it much easier for world leaders to embrace protectionism, on the old playground principle of "you started it". ·