PARIS — World leaders will try to understand how the economy has swerved so horribly off its recovery track when they gather this week for a summit with a curious inversion of roles from past meetings: Europeans will be asking developing countries in Asia and South America for financial help.
Though signs of an alarming slowdown in growth are everywhere — the U.S. is not creating enough jobs and China is struggling to cool down inflation without triggering a credit crunch — the old continent’s debt problems will take top billing at the summit.
As head of France’s year-long presidency of the Group of 20 meetings, Nicolas Sarkozy will scramble to show his peers meeting at the French Riviera resort of Cannes that Europe got a grip of its debt crisis with last week’s grand plan to save the euro.
One of the ideas behind creating the G-20 three years ago was to expand global economic decision-making beyond the North Atlantic axis to include more diverse countries. But this year’s summit on Thursday and Friday is all about old Europe. And now the Europeans are asking developing nations with cash reserves — such as China, India and Brazil — for financial help.
Eurozone leaders, for their part, have preventively dodged questions on details of their latest euro rescue operation.
