UK NEWS

PM’S SUMMIT TESTS ‘DOOMED TO FAILURE’

Gordon Brown

Tuesday March 31,2009

By Mark Ritson

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GORDON Brown last night set out five tests for this week’s G20 summit in London – but doubts were growing that any of them would be achieved.

The Prime Minister said more cash needed to be pumped into global financial groups like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and urged banking reforms.

His other tests included world leaders finding a way to make the global economy grow, clamping down on protectionism and protecting the environment.

After talks with Mexican president Felipe Calderon at 10 Downing Street, Mr Brown said: “These are five tests for the G20 summit – tests the world must pass.”

But a leaked version of the agreement to which he wants world leaders to sign up to showed the summit would fail almost all the tests.

It reveals Mr Brown wants China and Germany to pledge more cash to bail out the IMF – but both nations have refused to do so.

The draft communiqué also avoids any mention of a stimulus package designed to get growth going again.

Several countries have already started to plan the next G20 summit in the expectation that the London meeting will fail to produce anything useful.

In a speech at St Paul’s Cathedral in London today, Mr Brown will say that he understands how people feel the pain of the recession.

But he will add that the adverse conditions will also present opportunities.

The Prime Minister will say: “Billions of people in emerging markets will move from being simply producers of their goods to consumers of our goods, leading the world economy to double in size with twice as many opportunities for our businesses and our workers to prosper.”