A financial new world order?

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-10-20 20:57

Those words could send shivers through a White House that is suspicious of the current chorus of world leaders -- European, Russian, and others less friendly to the US -- who are hailing the current economic crisis as a moment to usher in a multipolar world. Bush indicated he seeks to maintain some degree of American stewardship over the financial reform effort when he politely declined the offer of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon to host the expanded G-8 summit at the UN in New York.

Among the issues the White House has indicated it would endorse for a reform agenda are rules for the international flow of investment funds, improved oversight of increasingly global financial institutions, and means of boosting the transparency of international financial transactions and markets.

But European leaders have called for what sound like much deeper reforms. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, for example, has proposed a reorganization of the International Monetary Fund -- a Bretton Woods institution.

Behind the European proposals is a sense that the financial crisis and America's darkening economic prospects make this an opportunity for the European Union to play a bigger international role. Last week at the close of a two-day EU summit on the financial crisis, Sarkozy predicted that an international summit would take place before the end of the year because "Europe wants it, Europe demands it. Europe will get it."

More than a show of unity with a declaration for a series of summits will be needed if the world is truly to come together to address the crisis, some observers note. "Unity of purpose is not found in a meeting or series of meetings. It's found in purpose," says Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. "Whether that's something the major players in this crisis can come together on remains to be seen."

But Mr. Serfaty points out that the Europeans chose to engage the Bush administration, when just a few years ago the deep divisions over the Iraq war were disrupting such cooperation.

"Rather than seeing any kind of disconnect," he says, "I think we should emphasize the fact the Europeans are doing what [the Americans] want them to do, in that they are coming together and taking a proactive approach to this crisis."

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