The Independent: Britain, not Europe, will be the outsider at the G20 summit - by Mary Dejevsky

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Britain, not Europe, will be the outsider at the G20 summit - by Mary Dejevsky

Curl up in the warm cocoon of optimism and defensiveness being spun by Downing Street before G20 leaders convene next week in London, and quite soon you will feel a chill draught. The British are doing their utmost to save the world; they are best friends again with Washington, and most of the rest of the world is on their side. If only those pesky Europeans would see reason. If you dare, however, it is worth stepping outside the small world of British comfort-speak, and just listening. You will very quickly find – as I did, at a weekend meeting of EU politicians and others – that for many of those supposedly stubborn and suspect Europeans, it is the British who are out of line.The European misgivings are threefold. The first, and most immediate, relate to policy. The German and French governments adamantly oppose any international fiscal stimulus; they insist they have done enough to lubricate their own economies and want to wait to let the measures take effect. They worry about unleashing inflation – the same argument used a little half-heartedly by those in Britain opposed to increasing the money supply. If there is money to be contributed, the Europeans want to use existing institutions, such as the IMF – or, in the case of the ailing "new" European economies, EU mechanisms such as the European Central Bank.

Europe see in the whole British approach an arrogance quite insufferable, given Britain's role in what has happened and its abiding ambivalence towards the EU. They see it not just in our politicians, but still more in our diplomats and in the Foreign Secretary personally, for whose off-hand and didactic manner particular venom is reserved. They go on to cite two specific objections. London, they say, strove to be the global financial centre, without the national tax base to honour its international obligations.That the G20 summit will be held within sight of the bank towers of London's Docklands is an added irritation. As for anti-protectionism – the reserve summit theme if no international stimulus is agreed – they retort: What is the recent 30 per cent fall in sterling, if not protectionism by competitive devaluation?