After the last summit of the European Union, which was a disaster for indebted countries, here comes the G20 summit, which seems to be not better.
Indeed the decisions of this disastrous European summit mean increasing the debt of all the European countries, by the guarantees that they must now give to one another, to submit them to the diktat of one of the Member countries, (hardly less indebted than the others) and to prompt banks to reduce their credits to rebuild their capital positions, which will lead inevitably to a recession, reducing fiscal revenues, worsening the public debt and weakening the banks even further; until the next crisis.
The next G20 summit, which you all know how important I consider the issue, will be the opportunity for all non-European countries to make it look like all their problems were coming from Europe. We will hear the United States argue that their crisis is over and all would be well in the world if Europe had resolved its problems. We will hear China, courted by all countries in deficit, get in exchange for its support that there could be no talk of its exchange rate, though much too low. We will hear the nations of the Global South complain about the disruptions of agricultural markets. And they will all make further commitments on the control of their banks, the reduction of traders’ bonuses, the control of the activities of their speculators, the reduction of their public debt and the control of their tax havens.
Of course, it would be cruel to remember here the innumerable times when these so-called decisions have already been made.
It would be equally cruel to ask these leaders to recognize that there is nothing the G20 can do on any of the issues that it covers: neither finance, nor economy, nor environment, nor poverty.
And even less on demography, a subject of particular importance: this week we are celebrating the birth of the 7 billionth human and going straight to 9 billion in 40 years, without having any idea on how to give them food and drink, how to transport and house them; nor do we have any idea on how we could pay our debts if the global birth rate was reduced sharply, that is to say, if the population of the world grew older massively.
On all this, the leaders gathered in Cannes (actually almost 40, without counting all those who invited themselves, or gather in the shadow of this caravanserai) should have at least the honesty to recognize that they will have no power as long as they stick to such informal meetings. And that they finally agree to end these unnecessary summits and give the responsibility to address these issues to supranational institutions, democratically constituted, endowed with financial and coercive credibility.
Therefore this week all over the world we should do very precisely what the Europeans did not want to do last week at the European level.
Naturally, nothing will be done: we will pat ourselves on the back and we will get together for the next G20 Summit, in October 2012, in Mexico. In the meantime …