The Asia-Europe Summit

At the Asia – Europe summit in Brussels on Tuesday, European and Asian leaders signed a declaration stressing the need to boost the fragile recovery of world economy.

Officials from the 27 EU member states and 16 Asian countries, including China and Russia attended the summit, which is an informal dialogue and cooperation forum.

The President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, has stated that such meetings are important to Europe and Asia, as they create the necessary framework for analyses on how globalisation can be rendered beneficial for citizens of both continents.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country will next month take over the rotating presidency of the G20, also pleaded for a new monetary order. “We are living, he said, in a world in which monetary imbalances represent a risk for all our economies”.

A new monetary order is actually one of the priorities that Sarkozy set for the French presidency of the G20. With regard to the sensitive monetary issue, industrialized countries blame China for having under evaluated its national currency, the Yuan, to favour its exports and are urging it to allow the Yuan to grow.

The final document signed at the end of the summit also stresses the need for a reform of the International Monetary Fund, as emerging and developing countries are calling for a better representation in the IMF board.

Last week, the EU accepted to give up 2 of the 8 seats the member states hold on the board, which is made up of 24 members. Also, the summit participants agreed upon the need for a more effective fight against global warming.

China, which is the biggest pollutant, is held partially responsible for the failure of the latest climate conference, held last year in Copenhagen.

One of the objectives set in the Danish capital was an increase in world temperature of only 2 degrees.

The conference, however, failed to establish a calendar and mention the means to reach this target.