The meeting, to be held in Berlin on 22 February, will involve the four EU members of the G20: Germany, France, Italy and the UK. Improving financial supervision and regulation at European and global level will be the main topics on the table.
Last weekend, French President Nicolas Sarkozy suggested calling a Eurogroup meeting at the level of heads of state and government, similar to the one held in Paris last October in the midst of the financial turmoil.
The idea, originally suggested in an article published by Le Monde, was to widen the meeting to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Sarkozy also wanted to use the meeting to underline his disappointment with the current Czech EU Presidency, which is labelled as too "passive" in the article. The Czech Republic is not a member of the Eurogroup, which comprises the 16 EU countries that use the euro as their currency.
But Germany dismissed the proposal. "The chancellor does not think a Eurogroup meeting of state and government heads is needed," Angela Merkel's spokesman Thomas Steg said yesterday (2 February) during a press conference in Berlin.
The restricted meeting is likely to raise diplomatic eyebrows in Spain and the Netherlands, which both took part in the last G20 summit in Washington after a long dispute with their EU partners (EurActiv 14/11/08).
However, national capitals will have a second opportunity to influence the EU position before the London gathering, during a formal EU summit scheduled on 19-20 March in Brussels. The first formal exchange of views on the subject may already take place during a meeting of EU finance ministers next week in Brussels, according to EU Council sources.
Disputes might also break out in Berlin, not only due to those not attending, but also among those present. Italy, for example, is likely to seize the opportunity to re-table the idea of issuing common EU bonds - or EU-backed government debt - to raise money more easily in dried up financial markets.
But Germany keeps rejecting the idea (EurActiv 20/01/09). On Sunday, Bundesbank President Axele Weber said a Union bond would hamper the financial discipline which is at the centre of the common EU currency. "Personal responsibility for financial policy and the commitment to solid public finances of every member state are a constituent element of the European currency union," he told Handelsblatt newspaper. "This has always been a German concern and one of the prerequisites for the acceptance of the common currency over here," he added, according to Reuters.
