Five European leaders are meeting on Tuesday night in Downing St to discuss the world’s economic problems. That’s no bad thing, but how much are Mssrs Brown, Sarkozy, Prodi, Barroso and Ms Merkel really going to achieve in talks lasting no more than a few hours?

Kenneth Clarke, whom one might have expected to be sceptical about the whole thing, told Sky this morning that such events are useful, provided they can be kept informal. The former Chancellor says it is important, in an inter-connected world, to know how your counterparts in Europe are going to react to any given event.

The worst thing that can happen, he says, is for the leaders to get bogged down too much in detailed work on the communique to be presented to journalists afterwards.

Fair point, but isn’t it about time all this talk about reforming the financial system started bearing fruit. After all, Mr Brown and his colleagues have been talking for months about greater transparency, better early warning systems of contagion, clearer roles for credit rating agencies and so on.

Perhaps that will all be nailed down in greater detail at the G7 in Tokyo next month. Let’s hope so.

I suspect Tuesday’s events is more about politics. For Mr Brown it is a chance to make it look like he is engaged in Europe and setting the agenda, rather than the lonely, forlorn figure who turned up late to sign the EU treaty in Lisbon last month.

For Mr Brown, Mr Sarkozy, Ms Merkel and (the soon to be former prime minster) Romano Prodi, it is also a chance to tell domestic audiences that - hey - these economic difficulties at home are actually international in nature. We’re all in this together and we’re doing something about it.

One other thought. How many times do you think we we will be told that the problems in the global financial system started in America?

January 29th, 2008 in Uncategorised | Permalink