Moreover, EU leaders already agreed at the Spring European Council in Brussels to support a substantial increase in the crisis-fighting resources of the International Monetary Fund to which Europe would contribute 75 billion €. This comes on top of the doubling of the ceiling of our intra-EU balance of payments assistance to non-Euro zone countries to 50 billion € that was also decided.

We will continue leading by example. We will engage our international partners. We will work hard for agreement on all four of the key issues.

One, a large, coordinated and sustainable economic stimulus, to limit the effects of the crisis on our citizens, and to re-ignite the real economy.

Two, restore trust and confidence in the financial system. Not for the sake of the banks, but for the sake of entrepreneurs and workers in the real economy who need credit. We must go forward quickly with measures to get banks lending again, as we have agreed to do in Europe and as the US is doing. This means ending the uncertainty over the scale of banks' losses by removing so-called "impaired assets" from their balance sheets. At the same time, we must strengthen supervision worldwide and fill the gaps - including by calling a halt to tax havens. This requires a comprehensive reform of the international financial institutions.

Three, a strong message against all forms of protectionism and for opening up trade by moving ahead with the Doha talks.

And four, last but not least, a fairer world: reinforcing our commitments to developing countries and to making the IMF more representative. Developing countries must not pay the price of a crisis created in developed ones. They need extra help. A global instrument for trade finance is one step the EU is proposing. We need the contribution of the developing countries to address global challenges. One example is climate change. We want to reach a global deal at the Copenhagen conference later this year. We have a very significant global convergence of ideas already, most notably with the US. It is notable too that much of that consensus has emerged around Europe's own ideas and Europe's own economic model. The US Recovery Plan for example, emphasises measures to improve healthcare and protect the vulnerable as well as longer term investment, namely in infrastructure. Measures were taken already in most of the EU. They pay dividends not only in terms of limiting hardship. In a downturn, they automatically ensure that demand in the economy is sustained and that people are kept in jobs.

Because we have these "automatic stabilisers" in the EU, any comparison of spending between the US and EU is highly misleading. This is why our positions on the overall scale of the stimulus are closer than they may at first sight appear. We see the same convergence trend on regulatory questions.

So there is plenty of consensus going into the G20. The challenge is to turn it into concrete steps to put things right. Europe is rising to that challenge. We are confident that our partners will do the same. I want our citizens to know that their concerns are at the heart of what we will discuss and decide. I am aware that many people fear for their jobs, their mortgages, or their savings. Indeed, my number 1 concern at this stage is making sure that everything we do helps employment. It is by transforming our good intentions into joint actions next Thursday in London that we will meet their justified expectations.

The author is the president of the European Commission.

(China.org.cn April 2, 2009)