英伦广角 2009-03-15 应对金融危机,美欧意见相左（在线收听）

When they met earlier this month, both President Obama and Gordon Brown looked forward to coordinated international action to boost the global economy.

One of the things that Prime Minister Brown and I talked about is how can we coordinate so that all the G20 countries, all the major countries around the world in a coordinated fashion are stimulating their economies.

But as G20 finance ministers gather in Britain this weekend to prepare for the London summit in April, hopes of a real breakthrough are fading. In lighthearted comments, the White House spokesman said he didn’t expect specific commitments. 

And the President will talk to other nations of the G20 about acting together in hopes of doing the same without again negotiating some specific commitment.

European leaders have already set out their goals for the summit with France and Germany turning down Obama and Brown’s hopes of more borrowing to fund a further economic stimulus. The Europeans do want binding regulations to make sure banks and lenders don’t gamble away the economy again. But America insists it will make its own rules.

I think they will say nice things about we have to coordinate regulation but we are not gonna have a college of regulators as the EU wants, and already Congress is saying we are not gonna surrender any sovereignty over our banks to any other countries. So that’s not gonna happen.

This meeting was not Barack Obama’s idea. President Bush set it up last year. And many believe Obama is simply not ready to make big international commitments.

The new administration has been obsessed by America’s own economic woes. And they’ve yet to convince the markets at home that they are beating them. In particular, Treasury Secretary Geithner, this week’s chief US negotiator has been heavily criticized. His bank bailout flopped and he’s still the only senior official at the US treasury because of problems nominating and approving appointments.

A face-saving agreement is likely to be a doubling of IMF funds available to poorer nations. But if the London summit overall does fail to impress, it would be to the British government’s cost, even if America gets the blame.

Adam Boulton, Sky News, Washington