The European Press on the G-20
Another Dead-End Summit
Going up the garden path, again. Barack Obama accompanied by fellow ramblers Jose Manuel Barroso, Silvio Berlusconi, Angela Merkel at Nicolas Sarkozy during the G-8 summit in Canada on June 25.Marked by the EU-US divide over the best way out of the crisis, the world leaders at the G-20 summit in Toronto spurned Europe's proposals to tax banks and regulate markets. The only consensus reached was on deficit reduction, an objective championed by all 27 EU member states. European papers are scathing in their editorials on the G-20 gathering.
"A summit that could just as well not have been held," writes Poland's Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, offering its final verdict on last weekend's G-20 summit. "In Toronto, the G-20 leaders didn't solve a single economic problem," the daily adds. "The world's most influential politicians were unable to agree on anything tangible," particularly "on the principle of a global bank levy or on the instruments to bolster bank capital."
Likewise, France's Libération pronounces "the 'Gs' at a standstill." "The Huntsville G-8 and Toronto G-20 displayed more differences of opinion than progress in getting out of the crisis. The idea of a bank levy or international financial tax has been shelved indefinitely, and everyone pledged to cut deficits, to be sure, but on their own terms."
Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which advocates liberalizing international trade as the crisis remedy, says the G-8 and last weekend's G-20 once again proved how ineffectual summits are. "The fact that certain industrialized countries are incapable of listening to emerging countries' wishes and opinions jeopardizes the future of the G-20," writes the FAZ, particularly in view of the EU's attempt to tax financial transactions in the face of opposition from emerging countries that were spared by the crisis.
"Their pique should induce Europeans to wonder whether such taxes make any sense and give up on them," the German daily opines. "If the point of the G-20 is to sign off on European ideas, we might as well give it up. And if the G-20 is to become a serious international economic forum, it would be a pipedream to imagine that European notions are the measure of all things," the FAZ editorial concludes.
Every Man for Himself
"The G-20 has ushered in the return of 'every man for himself'," bemoans France's Le Figaro. "The attempt to define a consensus-based economic policy to get out of the crisis proved abortive. Between a Germany obsessed with cutting deficits ... a United States that is fretful about hamstringing growth by excessive austerity and a France halfway between the two, a common guideline is nowhere in sight. The G-20, which was created at the peak of financial turmoil, has proved its utility in times of crisis. But the meeting in Toronto also bared its limitations. Global economic governance of one sort or another, which is already so hard to hammer out at the European level, is not about to be put in place overnight."
In fact, explains Germany's Die Tageszeitung, "The disagreements within the G-8 and G-20 now force (the conferees) to refocus on matters that can really be changed: For Europeans today, that means Europe." So, concludes the TAZ, "The best news from this summit is that Merkel and Sarkozy seemed determined to tax financial transactions in Europe -- or in the euro zone if London holds out."
In spite of all, notes the EUobserver, "the statement on halving public deficits by 2013 was hailed as a victory for European politicians." "By setting that target, the G-20 came to a close under the banner of German-brand rigour," remarks La Repubblica. "The match played out" in Canada "was not Germany vs. the US," even if "Angela Merkel might give the impression she won the day," explains the Italian daily. "After having foisted its doctrine on Europe, Germany is now exporting it worldwide. Barack Obama, the last of the Keynesian leaders, seems to be beating a retreat. He did not convince Berlin of the benefits of states' spending their way to growth. But appearances are deceiving, and Merkel's triumph will soon prove a Pyrrhic victory. It serves to assuage the anxiety of the German public," which favors fiscal rigour, and to "accelerate the marginalization of Europe" by shifting even faster "the geometries of power towards the new dynamics between America, China, India, Brazil and Russia."
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