G-20 summit in London rises above grandstanding

G-20 summit in London rises above grandstanding

International diplomatic conferences, such as the recently concluded Group of 20 summit in London, are notorious for their accent on style over substance. Oftentimes, they resemble amusement-filled county fairs more than austere diplomatic symposiums.

With its fill of hammy grandstanding, corny photo-ops and whacky sideshows, the G-20 jamboree last week in Great Britain was no different.

In other respects, however, the 2009 summit broke the mold and achieved qualified success in specific recession-fighting strategies. And it did so with a spirit of limited unity and with a pledge for more meetings in the near future to deal globally with the global economic recession.

The summit’s theatrics

To be sure, the London conference, whose participants represent 85 percent of the world’s economic might, reached new heights in theatrics. There was the grandstanding of French President Nicolas Sarkozy who pouted that he would sulk out of the meeting if others did not play nice with him and reject U.S.-style stimulus funding. There were the ostentatious platitudes of Great Britain’s Gordon Brown who made lofty comparisons of the summit to the pivotal Bretton Woods Conference of 1944.

There were the hokey photo opportunities with leaders of the free world all too eager to yuck it up with American president come American idol Barack Obama. And there were the distracting sideshows, with first lady Michelle Obama stealing the spotlight in most of them. Who could ever forget her touchy-feely moment with Queen Elizabeth that broke fussy royal precedent and upstaged her husband’s debut on the international summit circuit?

The summit’s successes

But amid all of these and other distractions, leaders did achieve a modicum of success. Perhaps it was not the “turning point” to end the global economic meltdown, as Obama so declared at summit’s end, but substantive signs of achievement emerged nonetheless.

The leaders agreed on principles for financial market regulation, including expanded controls on hedge funds and derivatives trading.

They vowed to work as a unit to punish with sanctions tax-haven nations such as Switzerland, Costa Rica and the Cayman Islands.

They agreed to aggressively crack down on gargantuan compensation and bonuses for executives of financial institutions. And in what has generally been regarded as the summit’s greatest advance, member nations agreed to pledge an additional $750 billion to the International Monetary Fund. The IMF has emerged during this recession as an effective warrior. After years of irrelevance, it has become an aggressive responder to the crisis, lending billions of dollars in emergency loans to dozens of countries. This has played a large role in helping countries in distress avoid default, analysts say.

Perhaps one of the greatest outcomes of the G-20 summit was the commitment from all participants to meet again in coming months to follow up on their strategies and to craft new ones.

That development alone is encouraging for it indicates that ongoing solidarity, continuity and productivity will have a fighting chance of upstaging those once-a-year zany but worthless sideshow antics.