Blair breaks the summit mould

AS G8 finance and foreign ministers wrap up their preparatory meetings this weekend, Prime Minister Tony Blair is putting the final touches to his plans for the world leaders' summit next weekend in Birmingham.

By narrowing the leaders' focus to the few major issues of international organised crime, the environment, Africa and employability, Mr Blair has already charted a new direction.

Daniel Tarullo, senior fellow in foreign economic policy at the US Council of Foreign Relations, said that this was a departure from the usual wide- ranging agenda.

Until March, Mr Tarullo was assistant to President Clinton for international economic policy. He was the "sherpa", or lead planner, of last year's heads of state summit in the US.

"Blair wanted to re-orient the summits on more relevant issues," Mr Tarullo said. Having fewer topics on the agenda increases the odds of satisfying the leaders' wish for a substantive meeting and the bureaucrats' desire to receive a concrete mandate of actions to undertake for the coming year.

At the summit, Mr Blair's agenda will benefit from the special relationship evolving between him and President Clinton, reminiscent of the Thatcher- Reagan relationship of the 1980s.

"Blair and Clinton hit it off well very quickly," Mr Tarullo recalled. "They enjoy being with each other, individually and as couples. I'd venture to say that Clinton speaks to Blair more these days than to any other world leader. Blair, like the President, has a real capacity to listen well and to react in unprogrammed ways." Mr Tarullo noted that the Prime Minister and President Clinton share a similar policy vision: embracing liberal economics and new technology along with with a commitment to develop social programmes that ensure that the losers in economic globalisation a re not left behind or forgotten. Both recognise that traditional welfare schemes are no longer adequate or appropriate to the task. A good deal of the Birmingham summit will be spent with leaders comparing notes about what works and does not work in their respective countries in shrinking the underclass. But the scope for joint action on this issue is limited. Mr Tarullo said the summit's success would be judged by the concreteness of the proposals that came out of it. For instance, fighting international crime already has a tangible agenda that could be advanced further. On Africa, one bellwether of success will be whether the world leaders can agree on how to strengthen peacekeeping in a way that complements economic development. Environment is another test. At last year's summit, the divergence of views on the environment was so heated that discussion over what to say about it in the communique spilled over from Saturday into Sunday morning. Harmonious language will be evidence of progress in forging a common European, North American and Japanese position for the continuing global environmental negotiations. Mr Tarullo expects the Asian crisis, which is now flaring up in Indonesia and still of concern in Korea and Thailand, will "also find its way on to the Birmingham agenda informally". Central to this discussion will be the weak Japanese economy. In recent weeks, world leaders have been putting increasingly strong private and public pressure on Japan to restructure and stimulate domestic growth in its economy. The withdrawal of Japanese capital played a large role in fuelling the Asian crisis. Mr Tarullo doubted that the Birmingham summit would single out Japan, however. "They may be reluctant to put heavy, open pressure on (Prime Minister) Hashimoto, since they all get along well as a group and don't like to put the spotlight on any one of th em." The Birmingham summit might also give its blessing to specific aspects of the evolving proposals for strengthening the architecture of the world financial system to cope with a recurring global financial crises. Last month, finance ministers from a new G roup of 22 industrialised and emerging market countries formed three working groups to study ways to increase the transparency of emerging country finances, implement international surveillance of domestic financial systems and to avert public rescues th at collaterally bail out private lenders from bad investments. The G8 finance ministers meeting this weekend may reach a consensus on some proposals for fulfilling the first two items that can be endorsed by the heads of state at Birmingham. Progress is not expected on the third "moral hazard" dilemma. Increasing globalisation and the spread of wealth production to developing nations adds to the mounting pressure on the G8 to redefine its goals and roles. "The G8 always runs up against the perception that it is dictating terms to the rest of the world, " Mr Tarullo said. If Mr Blair's more targeted approach to summitry is a success, Birmingham may be remembered as a watershed in renovating the G8 summit process for the new era.

q The meeting of the finance ministers began in London on Friday much as the last get-together ended - with the other countries putting pressure on Japan to do more to repair its battered economy.