Time to follow the leader…but which one?

Next week (14-15 December), while EU leaders are in Brussels grappling with Turkey and energy policy, an American delegation led by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson will arrive in Beijing. There to launch a ‘strategic economic dialogue’, it is the most high-powered group of economic policymakers ever to descend on the Middle Kingdom from Washington.

Paulson will be accompanied by Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve Board chairman, the earnest Susan Schwab, the US trade representative, Carlos Gutierrez, the commerce secretary, Sam Bodman, the energy secretary… and the list is not exhaustive.

Without discussing the agenda, a couple of points can be made. First, Paulson’s undisputed leadership of this group underscores President George W. Bush’s formal designation of his treasury secretary as America’s front man for economic policy talks with China and reveals that, at last, Bush is putting real weight into economic diplomacy. Second, this would not be happening if Washington was not now seriously worried about its China challenge. With the dollar on the rockies the timing of the US delegation’s visit looks particularly opportune.

But let us imagine the EU also wanted to hit the Chinese hard between the eyes with its concerns about its now huge influence on the world economy. There is plenty to talk about, even leaving aside the mushrooming bilateral trade deficit. Take China’s foreign exchange reserves. We hear a lot about the $600 billion (€464bn) or so the Chinese government has invested in American government securities. Too often overlooked is the $200bn (€155bn) plus it holds of eurozone government debt.

As one senior EU economic policymaker remarked recently, with ammunition like this at its disposal, China will not only help to shape the international value of the euro, it could also, just by accident, trigger chaos on the world’s financial markets.

So the stakes are high. Let’s assume that we round up a posse of top-level economic policymakers to take an Airbus to Beijing next month. Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank, would have to go, obviously. But he is not an elected official. But then neither, in any meaningful sense, is Jean-Claude Juncker, chairman of the informal Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers. Some hundred thousand Luxembourgers do not hack it in terms of a pan-EU democratic mandate. However he clearly has to sit in the front row of first class alongside Trichet.

As the self-designated pre-eminent European Commission economic foreign policy maker, Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson would insist on sharing the front row, too. So long as there are two seats on either side of the aisle that just leaves room to slip Joaquín Almunia, the economic affairs commissioner, into the fourth place.

Tricky though, because Peer Steinbrück, Germany’s finance minister, and, under the German presidency of the EU, chairman of the Ecofin Council, cannot be overlooked.

But if a German is on board an Airbus there has to be a Frenchman too. Reserve a seat for Finance Minister Thierry Breton.

Oh, and a couple more for the other two European G7 finance ministers. That’s the famously dour eurosceptic Gordon Brown - it is a long flight but he cannot be excluded now. Put him next to the learned Professor Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, Italy’s astute finance minister. And what about energy? Make way for Energy Commissoner Andris Piebalgs.

Perhaps that is enough? No, hands up for Javier Solana, the EU’s foreign policy chief. But if Solana is going…no wonder that, at a recent private meeting, one top Commission official, when asked how the EU could, like the Americans, integrate its international economic, trade and currency policies, came over all wistful.

We are all, as good Europeans, in favour of subsidiarity, of course. But in a globalising world we really are going to have to decide who speaks for us on the world stage, particularly in times of economic crisis. We may need a leader sooner rather than later.

• Stewart Fleming is a freelance journalist based in Brussels.

Next week (14-15 December), while EU leaders are in Brussels grappling with Turkey and energy policy, an American delegation led by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson will arrive in Beijing. There to launch a ‘strategic economic dialogue’, it is the most high-powered group of economic policymakers ever to descend on the Middle Kingdom from Washington.