The pre-summit summit
The fourth emergency European summit in two months kicks off at lunchtime.
It's been called to coordinate a European Union position ahead of next week's Washington meeting on new financial rules.
Even though the economics commissioner Joaquin Almunia says "there is a single vision" there'll be a fair bit of argument about how much detail they should agree today.
The French have come forward with an 11-point plan, ranging from "draw up codes of conduct to address incentives to excessive risk-taking" to "promote a change of culture in the governance of financial institutions towards sustainable value creation."
The British worry is that too much detail will tie European hands in Washington and that the French plan to introduce protectionism in the guise of tighter regulation. There will be no written agreement at the end of today, so we will rely on the news conferences to find out what has happened.
Unusually even the top civil servants won't be in the room: it will be just the prime ministers and presidents plus the French ambassador to the EU, who will then debrief his 26 colleagues.
When I get to hear more I will let you know.
Welcome to my 
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These french want a reform of the system were their benefits are increased, if their interests are decreased in the new reform of the system, then NO reform must be done (remember CAP).
They push for reform only with intention of benefiting them, how clever is this!?
But they can't have it their way when money is no the table.. no wander why belgium cannot survive as country with french people inside.
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The bottom line is that the Bankers without due diligence, self-regulation but with an appetite to make money by whatever means have created a global financial crisis which has the potential for being as bad for people as the 1930s.
That is not to say that people are not their own worst enemies when it comes to taking out loans and borrowing money on credit cards knowing full well their income might not support the due repayment requirements but if the Banks had lent money and credit more wisely then the world would not be in the dire straits it is now likely to find itself.
The simple fact of the matter that finance sector regulation is required - even if it is after the horse has bolted - and one must (and it pains me to say it!) applaud (yuckkkk! spit!) President Sarkozy for taking a lead and putting forward a plan to take to Washington.
Prevarication by the British government is symptomatic of why the Credit Crunch has the potential for hurting the USA and the British economies more than most other nations - the British are and always have been laissez-faire traders and since the days of Margaret Thatcher, the British have been the foremost in wanting to allow market forces to dominate.
The problem is that the demand for credit has been astronomical in the UK and, unfortunately, the Banks have been complicit (without due diligence and regulation) to lend money whilst the sun shone.
Now the British, in particular, need to bite the bullet and take a back seat, keep their Banks in tight rein and stop trying to look like they know how to run banks and finance better than anyone else - clearly they did not!
The British people are going to suffer the consequences more than the Bankers from this financial crisis and (I think deep) recession so it behoves the UK Government to keep it zipped, take a back seat and listen to what others have to say - rather than express private opinions that "too much detail will tie European hands in Washington and that the French plan to introduce protectionism in the guise of tighter regulation."
The Americans are going to slipstream into US Protectionism as fast as they can under a Democratic Presidency - Europe should be looking to do the same. Stuff the so-called UK's "Special Relationship" with the USA - it's the USA who gave us this problem in the first place and, because the British "love the American way of doing things", we adopted their loose moral code of ethics when it came to banking controls and allowing the public to borrow way beyond their individual means - something the French do not allow!
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#1, karolina001,
Whoa, you have just upset most of wallonia with that assertion, the francophones I know in my French speaking Walloon are just as critical of the French as you. They also know that the French can't organise a pi*s up in a brewery and that the most applicable epitaph to French management is 'yet another disaster pulled from the jaws of victory'. We also firmly believe that Paris is the centre of the known universe, that the EU was sent by a higher being to aid the French people and that Sarko is his representative on earth, like not!
Other than that I agree with your thought that the French proposal must be analysed inside out to see where the twist that benefits them is.
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To Buzet23 (3):
I also agree that French proposal has to be analyzed and thought carefully, but I really don't think that's because it would benefit France. I would be more concerned that people haven't thought adequately what the network effects are. I should also want to note that anything that benefits EU in the end also benefits France and other member countries too due to network effects.
Put anyway, god bless the EU, may it strike fear of god into the American heathens and teach them the ways of true civilization.
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There's been an influx of the French in Belgium?
Wow. They learned the local accent quickly then! :P
To quote a friend of mine (who is French, not Belgian, and lives in France...)
"Sarkozy is a (insert insult here) but at least he does what he says".
I think the proposals that will be put forward will come from an amalgamation of all 27 state's suggestions, therefore the proposals will not just be in France's favour.
Though the garden gnome will bask in the glory of any positive outcome (as he lives off ego-massage and "esbrouffe") at least we only have to put up with him for a short while. :)
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#4, Jukka_Rohila, and #2 Menedemus,
I can't find the link for the moment but in 2005 or 6 our friend Sarkozy was telling the French people how they had to copy the US and UK model of allocating mortgages rather than the French (and also Belgian) way of state control on the percentage of credit anyone can have. It seems he has completely reversed his direction these days.
However, a plan to reform the financial markets needs to be implemented very quickly and it needs to target both the Banks and their traders. Why the markets have not been suspended until workable rules have been implemented amazes me as the markets are still collapsing and little is being actually done. It is almost as if that is the target of the leaders of the world.
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"may it strike fear of god into the American heathens and teach them the ways of true civilization"
I think that this week they have finally shown that they have learnt those ways!
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To Buzet23 (6):
The problem is not how much money banks can loan to a person. I would say I agree with Sarkozy in that the state should not dictate or control how much credit one can have, that is unnecessary and makes the market not to work optimally.
The main problem in financial markets is transparency. What we should remember that this whole global financial crisis was the result of two factors: fraud in sub-prime markets and over leveraging.
Sub-prime loans are not problematic, there is nothing wrong essentially with them. The current problem was created by local lenders and real estate agents who encouraged their customers to lie about their income and ability to repay mortgages, they then sold these loans to upstream where they in the end were bundled with other financial assets and sold to investors. The fault of Wall Street was that they should have known or even started to suspect that there are possible malpractice in downstream and thus they should stop and investigate, unfortunately due to their greed they failed to do this.
Another big problem in all this is that people have forgot that everything carries a risk. In US and in Europe governments have saved failed financial institutions. They may have saved many organizations and many jobs, but unfortunately by doing so they are letting these organizations and their managements of the hook. What they should have done in the US and in Europe is to let organizations fail, when organizations die, when people fired, managers and boards taken to courts and shareholders loose their investment, then only will lessons be learned.
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#8, Jukka_Rohila,
For once we're on the same track I think as I agree with much of your analysis. The only difference is that the bail out saved the financial institutions and their employees jobs but it has so far not been passed down the line to businesses or ordinary people as it was supposed to do. The plan that was spun was that the rescue would enable the fiancial institutions to operate 'as normal' and release the funds needed for small businesses (PME). So far all the signs are that the bad managers in the banks are simply hoarding the rescue money and are most probably continuing their games.
It is looking increasingly like your last paragraph will be necessary "What they should have done in the US and in Europe is to let organizations fail, when organizations die, when people fired, managers and boards taken to courts and shareholders loose their investment, then only will lessons be learned."
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"Laissez faire" means "Do what you like". For investment banks however, it means doing what they like WITHOUT FEAR OF ANY CONSEQUENCES WHATSOEVER FOR THEMSELVES as the poor taxpayer will always bail them out! So the free market has NOT worked as the major banks and insurance companies have NOT been allowed to fail. The lunatic party can carry on as before: We bankers demand wild, do what we like capitalism without ethics, propriety or due diligence but when the going get's difficult, you must save us with "socialism" !
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"Laissez faire" means "Do what you like". For investment banks however, it means doing what they like WITHOUT FEAR OF ANY CONSEQUENCES WHATSOEVER FOR THEMSELVES as the poor taxpayer will always bail them out! So the free market has NOT worked as the major banks and insurance companies have NOT been allowed to fail. The lunatic party can carry on as before: We bankers demand wild, do what we like capitalism without ethics, propriety or due diligence but when the going get's difficult, you must save us with "socialism" ! What would Adam Smith make of all this?????
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Lets take the example of Belgium, why the french speaking people don't reform their financial situation with the help from Sarkozy, instead on relying on us, the rich dutch speaking? Why we have to bail them out every time this jobless french speakers?
Why they have to socialize their loses with us?
Then Sarkozy wants to do the same, and in principle if something benefits EU it benefits France and other countries as well, but if something benefits France, it does not benefit EU.. and here there is no network in action.. maybe France was the center of EU mentally, but not physically..
Change has come therefore we need change in EU as well, minorities to the table.. not arroganant majority..
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#12, karolina001,
You should stick to the "German identity angst" thread as there are a number of obsessives there. I'm long fed up with false Flemish claims, and how history, statistics etc are twisted and turned to make it seem you're the victims of the French speakers, and how any opposition is shouted down, insulted etc. When you actually analyse Walloon much of the population is actually part Flemish as well, so all you're doing is criticising your own characteristics. I've said on this blog many times that when you alienate strangers like me the Flemish fanatics really have lost the plot.
BTW did you notice how your fellow Dutch speakers the Dutch came rushing to bail out the Belgian banks (mostly Flemish run), like not, and how they took your interests into consideration when nationalising Fortis without notice, again like not. Maybe life will not be very rosy when you're on your own as the Dutch won't help you.
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Since Spain was not invited by Washington to the international economic crisis summit in New York layer this month, the Spanish Prime Minister, Mr Zapatero hopes to be there on a seat ceded by France.
This would be a scandal.
The Spanish government is allowing the regional government in Barcelona to close down RADIO COPE (pronounced COPEH). This radio station is centre-right in tendency and frequently criticises the nationalist-socialist regional and socialist national governments. Because of this, they are being closed down in certain areas.
Spain is demonstrating that it does not respect freedom of speech and expression and must not, therefore, be part of a European delegation.
Just as they pay no attention to racist attacks, so they pay little attention to the freedom of the press.
This affair is well worth investigating so as to bring out the true colours of the Spanish government.
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#14, henry_galicia,
Sounds like shades of the 'land grabs' that certain semi autonomous regions in Spain have been carrying out for some years. Maybe your radio station should take this to the European court of Justice as I think that is what was done with the land grabs.
Other than the pure Socialist need to stifle any form of opposition by whatever means however undemocratic, what is their particular excuse for this closure?
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