Thursday, 17 September 2009Fredrik Reinfeldt, Sweden's Prime Minister, has arranged an extraordinary EU summit on September 17th to prepare the Union for the forthcoming G20 summit in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (USA). The EU leaders will come together this evening to prepare a joint stance for the summit. In Pittsburgh, leaders from the first 20 developed/developing countries will meet on September 24-25 to discuss possible solutions for economic recovery and to deal with the financial crisis.
Mr. Reinfeldt has pointed out the importance of the summit by saying that, "Overall, the G20 summit will give us an important opportunity to discuss and coordinate among the G20 continued responses to the economic and financial crisis - and to the important issue of climate financing." He then added, “All these questions and proposals need to be discussed among the EU's heads of state and government before Pittsburgh, so that the EU can have a common and strong position at the G20 summit and speak with one voice."
It is expected that the leaders will take a joint position on the banking sector. The EU has mainly focused on the binding rules of the financial sector bonuses which should be tied to "long-term performance” and the bonuses should not be guaranteed to make the system more transparent. Trading in risky assets should be carefully observed and it should be ensured that banks have sufficient capital to cover potential losses. Moreover, the EU will have a joint position on environmental issues and they will try to put forward climate change ideas for a UN summit in December.
Reinfeldt, being the president of the European Council, wants to create a single voice within the EU to put pressure on the U.S due to gaps between the EU and U.S. on economic measures against the crisis and environmental problems. Environmental matters and the new regulation against the economic crisis are on the President’s agenda and these priorities have also made the EU summit very important for Mr. Reinfeldt.
Yilmaz Kaplan (JTW)
|
Thursday, 17 September 2009
Journal of Turkish Weekly
|
|
