Europe ( as a result of British Generalities) unable to unite in credit crisis - by John Huizing
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who currently holds the European presidency, has called on his European colleagues to reconvene in Brussels to tackle the credit crisis. During a lunch arranged at the last minute, the European leaders formulated a common position on Friday for the G20 summit, due next week in Washington. But Europe is not expected to play a strong leading role. "They are hardly long-term solutions," says Karel Lannoo from the Brussels think tank CEPS. He also questions the idea to give the International Monetary Fund (IMF) a larger role. If the IMF really wants to act as a financial policeman, then national governments would more or less have to be obliged to adopt its recommendations. And for this to happen the structure of the IMF itself would have to change radically. The US already has trouble accepting interference by international organizations in its national politics, warns Mr Lannoo. And there's another difficulty.the IMF is largely controlled by Europe. But the United States and the newer industrialized countries might prefer to see the voting positions and the capital chairs within the IMF rearranged. Something European countries may not like. Dutch Finance Minister Wouter Bos said: "We should watch out that we don't just formulate a general ambition, a general agenda for things that need to happen across the globe. In the worst case, it would result in endless discussions about what needs to be done in the world, while we forget there's a couple of things we need to do right now in Europe." It was a deliberate sneer at the British. They would like to arrange everything globally in the hope that London's financial center, the City, stays free of strict European regulation.
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