Coming soon, but not to a theater near you: The G20 conference

April 1st, 2009 by admin | Filed under Daily News, Global Credit Crisis, Money Management, Recession.

With global leaders converging on London or tomorrow’s eagerly awaited G2O conference, despite Prime Minister Brown’s hopes for a major breakthrough in solving the World’s financial problems, it looks increasingly like it will be a difficult if not impossible goal to achieve.

Already there are cracks showing with French President Nicolas Sarkozy causing problems, initially threatening to shun the conference only later to state that he and the French party would attend, but would strongly emphasise that their demands for stricter financial regulation be met.

It appears that the need to strengthen financial regulation will be one of the core issues at the conference, with France putting the heat on, and even threatening to walk out of the conference if agreements are not reached on this issue.

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and US President Barack Obama have been the principal sponsors of the conference, and both of them have not missed a chance to stress its importance and their hopes that it will generate the results needed to stimulate much needed global financial recovery.

The countries who go to make up the G20 are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the UK, the US and the EU. These countries control 80% of global financial wealth.

What may emerge is a serious conflict of interest between the British and North American camp and the European faction. President Sarkozy has not been slow in attaching blame for the global financial meltdown on the US and UK

More supportive of the G20 conference has been German Chancellor Angela Merkel who has been reported as saying that the chances of reaching some form of agreement, or at least a statement of intent, were high.

Brown and Obama remain confident that the participants in the G20 conference will rise to the challenge and he will have the full backing of

President Obama, who said before setting off on his first official visit to Europe since he became president that the G20 must give a “strong message of unity”,

In the meantime, Gordon Brown continued to show faith in his belief that the results of the conference will show that global problems require global solutions. With an obvious message to President Sarkozy brown went on to add that “the conference will mark defeat those who say protectionism is an option.”

In anticipation of the expected public demonstrations that the conference is expected to cause, London police have created a sterile environment around the Excel centre, in Canning Town where the World leaders will meet. In the meantime, it is not expected that the police will be called on to break up disturbances inside the hall.