UK's Brown on diplomatic offensive before G20 summit
24 Mar 2009 00:21:33 GMT Source: Reuters
By Adrian Croft LONDON, March 24 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will embark on a diplomatic offensive on Tuesday to win support for his plans to boost the recession-hit world economy before a crucial financial summit in London next week. Brown will give a speech at the European Parliament in Strasbourg about the financial crisis before flying to New York for a meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and then to Latin America for talks in Brazil and Chile. Brown has held extensive talks with European, American, Asian and African leaders in the runup to the summit of the Group of 20 leading industrial and developing countries that he will host in London on April 2. The summit will try to help pull the world out of its worst downturn since the 1930s. Brown's visit to Brazil, where he will hold talks with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and to Chile, where he will take part in a summit of centre-left leaders and meet President Michelle Bachelet, will enable him to say he has consulted leaders from around the world on how to deal with the crisis. Brown's spokesman said the prime minister was going to Latin America because a number of G20 members were from the continent. Argentina, Brazil and Mexico belong to the group. "These are large and significant emerging economies and it's crucial that they are part of the ongoing debate about how we deal with the current economic difficulties ... and how we reform the global financial and economic architecture," he said. Brown spoke by phone for 20 minutes to U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday about the G20, as well as about Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, Brown's office said. STOCK MARKET SURGE U.S. stocks surged around 7 percent on Monday after the Obama administration detailed a plan to purge toxic assets from bank balance sheets, fuelling optimism about a revival of lending. Brown, finance minister for a decade before he became prime minister in 2007, has taken an energetic role in seeking solutions to the crisis which has ravaged the banking system and sent Britain's and many other economies plunging into recession. Brown has sided with the United States in calling for extensive fiscal stimulus to boost the economy, putting him at odds with leaders such as Germany's Angela Merkel. He also is calling for a shakeup of international financial institutions, stricter rules for bankers' bonuses and has accepted the need for tighter regulation of financial markets after years of advocating a "light-touch" approach. During the trip, Brown will be lobbying for a strong commitment to resist protectionism and he will be pushing for a resumption of stalled global trade negotiations, officials said. Brazil and Chile are both important trading countries and key players in the world trade talks. Climate change is expected to be on the agenda for the trip. Brazil is seeking to be a key negotiator in talks in Copenhagen in December aimed at agreeing a new climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol after 2012. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and the presidents of Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay are expected to join Brown at the Progressive Governance Conference in Chile on Friday. Preparations for the G20 summit are falling into place. In Brussels last week, the European Union pledged more than $100 billion in new loans to the International Monetary Fund to bail out countries hit by the recession and urged the G20 to help double its funding. (Additional reporting by Frank Prenesti; editing by Michael Roddy)
Rural workers from "Workers Federation of Family Agriculture" gather after invading the building of Brazil's National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform in Brasilia March 19, 2009. REUTERS/Roberto Jayme (BRAZIL POLITICS ...
