REUTERS - U.S. President Barack Obama will
seek to cement a bond with France’s new leader at the White House on
Friday before heading to Camp David for a G8 summit where he is set to
press Europe to do more to fix the region’s deepening economic crisis.
Francois Hollande, sworn in this week as French president, has
already made waves by challenging Europe’s austerity focus and saying he
will pull French combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of this
year.
Obama, 50, may use their introductory meeting in the Oval Office to
encourage the 57-year-old Socialist to rethink his Afghanistan plans
that put France on an earlier exit timetable than other NATO allies.
But the two leaders, who have both expressed support for pro-growth
policies in Europe, are expected to form a common front on the euro zone
crisis that could dominate this weekend’s Group of Eight talks.
Obama’s administration spent heavily to tackle the 2007-2009 U.S.
recession, and Hollande is seeking to take the edge off austerity with
more job-creating infrastructure investments.
The G8 summit comes as Greeks are pulling cash from banks amid
growing fears that it might crash out of the single currency euro zone,
and financial markets have turned fearful about the prospects of a
full-blown crisis in Europe.
Obama
and other U.S. officials have urged European leaders repeatedly to do
more to stimulate growth in the region, fearing contagion from the euro
crisis could hurt the U.S. economy and threaten Obama’s chances of
re-election on Nov. 6.
Heather Conley, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, said Hollande and Obama “see things very
similarly about the need for a better balance between fiscal
consolidation, austerity and economic growth.”
That could put pressure on German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has
stressed the need for fiscal discipline to get the euro zone finances
back on track even as voters have toppled belt-tightening governments.
One of Obama’s closest aides, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon,
said the United States welcomed the evolving debate in Europe about the
“imperative for jobs and growth,” but he said the president’s intention
was not to drive a wedge between Europe’s two biggest economies, Germany
and France.
“I don’t think that the nature of these conversations are going to be
anything like taking one side or the other,” he told reporters on
Thursday.
“The president looks forward to leading a discussion among the
leaders about the imperative of having a comprehensive approach to
manage the crisis and get on a sustainable path towards recovery in
Europe.”
Limited power
Obama, a Democrat, has pitched a similarly “balanced” approach
combining short-term stimulus and longer-term cuts to heal the U.S.
economy and stoke hiring that has not recovered from the financial
crisis.
His presumed White House opponent, Republican Mitt Romney, has made
reducing the U.S. debt load which has escalated during Obama’s tenure
one of his key campaign messages.
“A balanced approach that includes not just austerity but growth and
job creation is the right approach,” White House spokesman Jay Carney
said on Thursday, explaining Obama’s message to the G8.
No
economic policy outcomes are expected from the closed-door talks at Camp
David, a rustic presidential escape about two hours from Washington
that Obama has visited far less frequently than his predecessor George
W. Bush.
The White House moved the summit to the Maryland retreat from Chicago
in part to give the meeting a more informal flavor, as well as to
escape the possibility of protests when Russian President Vladimir Putin
was slated to attend.
His prime minister, Dmitri Medvedev, will be there instead along with
G8 first-timers Hollande, Mario Monti of Italy and Yoshihiko Noda of
Japan, as well as Britain’s David Cameron and Canada’s Stephen Harper,
plus Merkel and Obama. European Commission PresidentContinue Reading
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