Discussions between world leaders over the economic crisis are to continue all day at London's Excel Centre.
Disagreements between global leaders over how to solve the current financial crisis continued to emerge in London yesterday, as heads of state met in bilateral meetings as part of the G20 summit.
In a joint press conference, French and German premiers Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel suggested that they favoured much stronger regulation of the global financial markets as the best way to promote recovery. Other leaders, including the UK's Gordon Brown and US president Barack Obama, are known to be more favourable towards big expansions of government spending to kick-start the economy.
Stringent restrictions on banker pay, cracking down on tax havens and tightly regulating hedge funds were cited by the French and German leaders as sources of potential disagreement between them and other G20 members.
"Germany and France will speak with one and the same voice," Mr Sarkozy said. He also remarked that the current financial crisis, which stems from a meltdown in the US subprime mortgage market and has pitched much of the world into recession, did not "originate" in Europe - a pointed reminder that he might not be willing to take America's lead on how to promote recovery.
Ms Merkel added: "Speculation must be regulated and there must be a framework for pay at the banks." At an earlier press conference, Mr Brown and Mr Obama had called for a unified response to tackle the crisis.
The main G20 summit of all the participating world leaders takes place in the Excel Centre, towards the east of the city, later today.
