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Obama arrives at G20 with big agenda

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-09-25 04:47

PITTSBURGH: US President Barack Obama arrived at the Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh on Thursday with an ambitious agenda to crack down on banks' risky behavior and rebuild the global economy on a more stable footing.

The White House said regulatory reform remained the top priority, dismissing concerns by German Chancellor Angela Merkel who warned that a US drive to rebalance the global economy risked distracting the G20 from a more urgent need for market regulation.

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"I don't think they're in any way mutually exclusive," White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

The sheer volume of problems the two-day summit is set to address - from the lopsided global growth model to tougher rules for banks and bankers' pay, plus climate change - prompted low expectations for any near-term action.

But there was broad consensus that tougher, coordinated regulation was needed to avoid a repeat of the two-year crisis that cost millions of people their jobs and forced governments to put up trillions of dollars in taxpayer money to prop up a faltering financial system.

"We do know that unless we all have greater rules for the road, money can fly and transfer anywhere," Gibbs said. "So if there are weaker rules in one place but everyone else is taking concerted efforts, you don't have a defense against what happened happening again."

Aides were still grappling over the precise wording for a statement to be issued at the summit's conclusion on Friday detailing the G20's commitments.

A G20 source told Reuters a draft version of the statement did not include a firm cap on bankers' bonuses, something France had pushed for early on before backing down amid objections primarily from the United States and Britain.

The G20 source said the draft document contained no figures on funding to fight climate change, another source of tension as some European leaders complain about slow progress.

The one sign of progress in climate change discussions was on phasing out subsidies for fossil fuels. The G20 source said the draft statement mentioned phasing them out in the "mid-term" but included no precise dates.