The White House said on Saturday it saw common ground with European leaders on how to address the financial crisis and agreed on the need to move quickly with some reforms but was quiet on specifics, Reuters reported. U.S. President George W. Bush will host a summit of the Group of 20 leaders in Washington in one week and but his aides have been more cautious about the prospects of concrete reforms emerging from the Nov. 15 meeting, the first in a series. The European Union on Friday backed a plan for the first summit to lay the ground for concrete reform proposals, which would be reviewed within 100 days by a second summit. Bush leaves office in 73 days to be succeeded by Democrat Barack Obama. "We believe there is a great deal of common ground among our approaches to address the turmoil in the financial markets, and President Bush looks forward to discussing how to best advance reforms to global financial markets with a wide range of leaders," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said in a statement. The White House has taken a cautious line for the first summit, urging that it focus on identifying the underlying causes of the financial crisis, establish principles for reform and set up working groups to address specific issues. "We agree with European leaders on the importance of identifying common principles to guide reforms, setting out a process to implement those principles promptly, and proceeding with actions on certain reforms immediately," Perino said. Her statement did not elaborate on what reforms. She did also praise the EU leaders' statement on Friday for recognizing the need for a coordinated response to the financial crisis. Bush and other administration officials have been pressing for the gathering of the G20 next week to also reaffirm support for free market principles, expanded trade and increased investment and capital flows. Governments around the world have thrown hundreds of billions of dollars into the markets and cut interest rates in hopes of thawing the frozen credit markets, calming jittery stock markets and preventing a global recession. EU proposals also included better risk management in the financial industry, closer supervision of credit rating agencies and hedge funds and reinforcing the role of the International Monetary Fund as the rescue agency for troubled countries.
