France plays musical chairs at G20 summit

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-11-14 06:35

PARIS - The European Union will have seven leaders at this weekend's G20 summit in Washington, with France playing a complex game of musical chairs to get both the Spanish and Dutch involved, a senior French official said on Thursday.

By contrast, just one African nation, South Africa, and one Arab nation, Saudi Arabia, will have seats at the high table.

The aide to French President Nicolas Sarkozy revealed some of the diplomatic maneuverings in the build up to the November14-15 gathering, with France arguing at length with US President George W. Bush to get its European allies invitations.

"It was a long, very difficult negotiation with President Bush," said the official, declining to be named.

The leaders are due to discuss ways of preventing future financial crises and there was a long list of nations wanting to play a part in drawing up the new global economic roadmap.

The United States decided to limit the meeting to G20 leaders, an international forum that accounts for 80 percent of global trade and 90 percent of economic wealth.

France, Germany, Britain, Italy and the European Union are in the G20, but it does not include Spain or the Netherlands, the world's 8th and 16th largest economies respectively, and both countries lobbied hard to get an invite.

France holds the EU rotating presidency and managed to get Spain into the summit by offering Madrid the two seats normally reserved for the presidency -- a ploy Washington accepted.

Getting the Dutch on board proved much more complicated for French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

"The Americans told us to stop bothering them," the official said, adding that the US refusal caused "a crisis in the Netherlands, a drama."

In the end Sarkozy succeeded to get round US objections by offering the Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende one of the two seats reserved for France.

The chair had been earmarked for French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde and she will now sit behind Sarkozy in an area normally given over to advisers.

There was one further problem to overcome -- the flag.

To prevent Balkenende from having to sit infront of the French flag, Sarkozy decided to replace it with the EU flag, meaning that the Spanish, French, Dutch and EU commission leaders will all officially represent the EU at the talks.

"This might seem secondary, but in Spain and the Netherlands it took on gigantic proportions...It was our duty to find a solution," the official said. "It shows how negotiations work."