World to Europe: if you must hog G20 seats, could you at least talk less?

By Charlemagne

PASCAL Lamy, the formidable Frenchman who runs the World Trade Organisation, has a cunning plan to make Europeans less annoying as they crowd around the table at global gatherings like the G20. If they cannot agree to speak with one voice (by allowing a single envoy to represent the European Union), what if they agreed to speak with one mouth? If half a dozen European leaders will insist on turning up to the G20, could they divvy up the agenda ahead of time, and agree that one leader would speak (and only one) on each topic in the name of the EU?

It is a neat suggestion. Would it help?

When the G20 next meets, Europe will be represented by the national leaders of France, Germany, Britain and Italy (who are full members), plus Spain (which is an invited special guest), plus representatives of the union. The Dutch, who managed to sneak into the first G20 leaders' summits in Washington and London as Spanish-style guests, seem to have been axed from the list this time.

Before the Lisbon Treaty, the 27 EU national leaders were represented by whichever country held the rotating presidency at the time. The rotating presidency has gone, but this will not lead to a reduction in European numbers.

The new President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, has convinced EU colleagues that he must attend meetings of the G20 to represent the union's 27 national leaders, in addition to José Manuel Barroso, the President of the European Commission (who is to represent the EU in areas where the commission's centralised bureaucracy has the lead, such as trade policy). In a nod to the rest of the world's impatience with the number of Europeans in the G20, the two presidents have agreed to share a sherpa, and to sit behind a single name-plate at the table. I don't think there are plans for anyone to sit on laps.

Alas, the rest of the world may feel there are still a lot of Europeans in the room (it may not help that three of the international organisations that attend the G20, the WTO, the International Monetary Fund and the Financial Stability Forum are also headed by Europeans).

Pascal Lamy, who attends the G20 as the WTO boss, was asked about Europe's representation at the G20 this morning, at the Brussels Forum, a weekend-long annual policy shindig organised by the German Marshall Fund of the United States. He said there was a polite diplomatic answer, and a frank answer.

The diplomatic answer is that Europeans have already made quite a gesture to the world's emerging powers by supporting the G20 as the world's pre-eminent forum for global economic governance. After all, the Europeans had half the seats at the G7, and only a third of the seats at the G20.

The frank answer is that the current set-up "does not make sense", he said.

“If one European takes the floor on one topic, and then another European takes the floor on the same topic, nobody listens. Nobody listens because either it's the same thing and it gets boring, or it's not the same thing and it will not influence the result at the end of the day….So the right solution, if I may, is at least to make sure that they speak with one mouth. Not one voice—one mouth—on each topic on the agenda. That would be a great improvement.”

Would that convince others? The American government's representative on the discussion panel—Robert Hormats, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Economic, Energy, and Agricultural Affairs—sounded like such a deal could well be a start, saying:

“Europe increasingly wants to be seen as a unified force, but it also wants a lot of seats. Europe would be more effective in these meetings if it had one person speaking for it on specific issues.”

I think Europe's over-representation is not sustainable in the long run. That said, am I about to urge the British government to allow France to speak for the City of London on financial regulation? Ahem, no. No more than the French would allow Britain to speak for them. And there is Europe's problem. Mr Lamy's fudge sounds like it might be a pragmatic first step.

In a post-script for regular readers (as we know each other pretty well now), I should perhaps confess I moderated this particular panel at the Brussels Forum. The forum is attended by some intimidatingly clever types, so this counted for me as a stressful Sunday morning gig.

In the event, it came close to outright humiliation for your blogger. Arriving on stage, and being ushered to a bar stool in the middle of the room, I prepared to introduce the panel to the audience. I reached for my handy crib sheet with their names and correct job titles... and could not find it. With a room full of bigwigs blinking expectantly, I began to introduce them off the top of my head, while still hunting with one hand for the crib sheet, which I was sure I had tucked into my notebook. As I spoke and hunted at the same time, a ghastly realisation hit me. In my stressed state, the name of one of the panellists had just completely exited my head.

What do I do now, I thought to myself, while I heard my voice stumblingly begin to introduce "our very distinguished panel"? Indeed they were distinguished: all of them jolly important people, whose CVs I had carefully studied. And yet in about eight more seconds, if I did not find my crib sheet, I was going to have to admit that I had no idea what one of them was called. What then? Would I ask him to introduce himself? A half-second before I committed career suicide, I found the crib sheet. I am told the whole thing is on video. As I write these words I have not yet had a look. It may take some time before I can watch it.