"We believe that an open world economy, based on the principles of the market, effective regulation and strong global institutions, can ensure sustainable globalization with rising well-being for all," the gathering is expected to say.

The main achievement will be an announcement of something close to $500 billion in promises of new money for the International Monetary Fund to help bail out the worst-hit of the smaller economies. Short of that, billionaire investor George Soros said Sunday that the developing world faced serious collapse.

There will be no great commitment from the three mercantilists, the countries in chronic and regular trade surplus, to use their vast reserves to spur the kind of domestic consumption that could get the global economy moving again. Japan, Germany and China have each made it clear that their domestic political priorities outweigh any such financial altruism.

We know this from their public statements and because someone in German Chancellor Angela Merkel's office deliberately leaked to a German magazine an advance draft of the G20 communique. Prepared by the British hosts, the communique referred to a $2 trillion global stimulus package of tax cuts and new spending. The sum was in brackets because it had not been agreed in advance.

The Berlin leak was a calculated act of sabotage to block any such new stimulus of the kind hoped for by U.S. President Barack Obama and the summit host, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The British draft suggested that such a global stimulus could create 19 million jobs and spur 2 percent extra economic growth.

The leak gave Merkel the opportunity to denounce the plan in advance by saying, "I will not let anyone tell me that we must spend more money." Put this in perspective: Germany is a $3 trillion economy that has been running a $300 billion trade surplus. Its exports have collapsed since the rest of the world has stopped buying, so Germany will not deploy its reserves to help restart the global economy. Merkel, facing an election in September, fears both inflation and a backlash from German voters who fear their money being used to bail out its corrupt or feckless EU partners in Eastern Europe.

Other European leaders joined Merkel, with Spanish Finance Minister Pedro Solbes saying, "I and the rest of my colleagues from the eurozone believe there is no room for new fiscal stimulus plans."

The British scrambled to recover, saying that the $2 trillion was not necessarily new spending but referred to tax cuts and spending packages already pledged, most of it provided by Obama's $787 billion and China's $586 billion. The other $627 billion from countries around the world, including Australia, Mexico, South Korea, India, Russia and Brazil, shows what small sums are coming from the EU countries, although they collectively comprise the world's largest economy.

So much for the so-called Obama effect; this was the supposed eagerness of the EU countries to celebrate the departure of the Bush administration with fervent support for the policies of his successor. The European Union is disappointing Obama over economic policy, and immediately after the G20 summit the European Union will disappoint him all over again at the NATO summit, where the European allies will decline to commit new combat forces to Afghanistan.

Indeed, the United States and Britain had already gone a long way to accepting the European demand for much more intrusive financial regulation, in the hope that this would be met by more EU readiness to join the United States and Britain with stimulus spending. Two other important factors are the lack of consensus in Britain, with Bank of England Gov. Mervyn King warning last week that the British economy could not take much more deficit spending, and the European Union's fear of a euro crisis.

Five EU economies that are members of the eurozone, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain and Ireland, are in such trouble that the bonds they issue in euros have to pay much higher interest rates than the bonds issued by Germany. This is a worrying development because it means the markets are pricing in the risk of these countries defaulting, which would pose Germany with an agonizing choice of bailing them out or seeing the eurozone collapse. It also means that Germany has to keep funds in reserve in the event of such a calamity.

The Europeans also claim that their generous welfare-state systems, with free healthcare and generous benefits for the unemployed, mean that they are already spending just as much as Obama's stimulus package. Moreover, they claim that years of EU structural funds on the roads, ports and rail systems of the new member states mean that Europe's infrastructure is in a much better state than America's, so there is less room for infrastructure spending.

Lurking behind these European attitudes is a deep resentment of the Anglo-Saxon form of capitalism, the innovative and risk-taking financial practices of Wall Street and London, which they blame for getting the world into its current mess. There is some truth in this, except that German, Swedish and Austrian banks were just as risky and profligate in their lending to Eastern European countries.

Gloomy British officials are already saying that perhaps the next G20 summit, expected to be convened somewhere in Asia this autumn, could agree on further stimulus measures if, as they expect, the recession is showing no signs of easing. And some G20 members still have not given up hope.

"Only the G20 has the global economic reach to provide the response necessary to begin to mend this global economic recession and support the restoration of jobs around the world," said Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

But the signs are that the G20 -- Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union -- will fall short of these hopes. In the process, they will serve notice that Obama's honeymoon is over on the international stage, just as it is fading back home in the United States.

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