France and Germany have demanded that the G20 leaders meeting in London today back tough global action on financial regulation, tax havens, and banking transparency, saying they would refuse to sign a deal that did not meet their “red lines”.
At a joint press conference in London, Nicolas Sarkozy, French president, and Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor, insisted that “concrete results” on future financial regulation was the most important ambition for the G20. “We don't want results that have no impact in practice but results that change the world as we know it,'' Ms Merkel said. Mr Sarkozy insisted: “The time for pointless summits is behind us”.
Barack Obama, the US president, earlier emphasised the “enormous consensus” on plans to restore growth to the world economy, adding that the core of the summit would be “that government has to take some steps to deal with a contracting global market place and that we should be promoting growth”.