In 1933 the London Summit never got off the ground after Franklin Roosevelt declined to attend. The 2009 Summit did better merely by getting the attendance of the world's top 20 leaders. Yet in substance the mainstream press reaction - that serious things were done, that they will make a difference to the real economy, that the full effect will take time to come through, but that flexibility will be needed in responding to the recession as its shape becomes clearer - gets a lot of things right. The communiqué is actually clear and forceful; and the follow up is real.
An enduring G20 has a political message as well as an economic one: that the political imbalance inherent in an economic governance structure dominated by the old powers is never going to work and that it is going to change. Philip Stephens in the Financial Times gets this.
Posted at 13:52 04 April 2009 by David Miliband | Comments[0]
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