In the News (from The Times Online): “The special relationship is going global”

Historians will look back and say this was an unprecedented period of global change. The scale and the speed of the global banking crisis have at times been almost overwhelming. Everywhere people who rely on their banks for savings have been feeling powerless and afraid.

But it is when times become harder and challenges greater [that] countries must show vision, leadership and courage – and … we can do even more working together internationally. So now is the time for leaders of every country in the world to work together to agree to the action that will see us through the current crisis and ensure we come out stronger.

A new set of challenges faces the whole world, which summons forth the need for a partnership of purpose that must involve the whole world. Rebuilding global financial stability is a global challenge that needs global solutions.

However, financial instability is but one of the challenges that globalization brings. Our task in working together is to secure a high-growth, low-carbon recovery by taking seriously the global challenge of climate change. And our efforts must be to work for a more stable world where we defeat not only global terrorism but global poverty, hunger and disease.

Globalization has brought great advances, lifting millions out of poverty as they reap the benefits of economic growth and trade. But it has also brought new insecurities… Globalization is not an option, it is a fact, so the question is whether we manage it well or badly.

I see this global new deal as an agreement that every continent injects resources into its economy. I believe that central to this new investment is that every country backs a green recovery for the future, that every country that wishes to participate in the international financial system agrees to common principles for financial regulation, coordinated internationally.

It is a global new deal that will lay the foundations not just for a sustainable economic recovery but for a genuinely new era of international partnership in which all countries have a part to play. This programme of internationally coordinated actions includes six elements:

First, universal action to prevent the crisis spreading, to stimulate the global economy and to help reduce the severity and length of the global recession.

Second, action to kick-start lending so that families and businesses can borrow again.

Third, all countries renouncing protectionism, with a transparent mechanism to monitor commitments.

Fourth, reform of international regulation to close regulatory gaps so shadow banking systems have nowhere to hide.

Fifth, reform of our international financial institutions and the creation of an international early warning system.

And last, coordinated international action to build tomorrow today – putting the world economy on an economically, environmentally and socially sustainable path towards future growth and recovery.

I want that hope to be fulfilled through us all coming together to shape the 21st century as the first century of a truly global society.

Filed under: Crisis | 1 Comment →