Busy, busy, busy

Everybody wants to save the world. First it was Supergordon Brown. Now it's Nicolas (the Batman or le Chauve-Souris) Sarkozy. He has announced to the Toy Parliament that before next month's world summit that will save the world he wants an EU summit. And just to make sure that everything happens he will personally go (together with Commission President Barroso, in his role of Robin) to Beijing "to convince China and India to participate in the world summit". Presumably, the trip to Beijing will not be sufficient. They will have to cross the border and go to New Delhi as well. Ahem, who is paying for all this?

Meanwhile Le Chauve Souris Sarkozy and his very special Robin, alias El Presidente Barroso, have gone to Camp David to have a chat with outgoing President Bush. Of course, Sarkozy is also outgoing as President of the EU because France's time will be up at the end of December but the media does not seem to realize that.

Three world leaders - George W. Bush, Jose Manuel Barroso, and Nicolas Sarkozy - declared in Camp David Saturday they would make every effort to maintain the 'foundations of democratic capitalism', while not allowing the 'malevolent practices of recent years' to reoccur. The most eloquent of the three, the French president, said emphatically that it would be a disaster to undermine the foundations of the free market economy, while 'continuation would mean the same problems causing the same disasters'.

Do these words mean anything? Of course nothing. Politicians are simply trying to cover the confusion they have been thrown into by a financial crisis whose dimensions they did not expect and whose effects they underestimated. By crying 'Things must change!' they are trying to divert the public attention away from their own helplessness.

Tsk, tsk, these Poles are so cynical. Mind you, I wouldn't myself call the President of the European Commission or the temporary President of the European Union, who, just like a previous temporary President, Chancellor Merkel, prefers to spend his time rushing round the world instead of looking to some of the problems his own country is facing, world leaders.

The Christian Science Monitor seems to think that President Sarkozy is emerging as a new leading force in the world.

This week Mr. Sarkozy worked with President Bush to set up a series of meetings to reform the global economy, and he's now off to Asia to broach the idea of bringing India and China together with G-8 nations in a "Bretton Woods II" framework of economic rules. This comes just weeks after he moved with alacrity to broker a cease-fire deal to end the Georgia-Russia war.

Critics still point to Sarkozy's proclivity to turn politics into a show and to unashamedly take credit whenever possible. Yet in the space of a summer he has consolidated his power and blended substance with showmanship, and is now winning praise as a crisis leader in a more multipolar world.

"I think today that everyone, even those who had misgivings, acknowledge that [Sarkozy] not only has great political energy, but also exceptional leadership qualities," commented José Manuel Barroso, the EU chief who accompanied Sarkozy to Camp David this weekend.

Well, if all you need to be a world leader is to rush around setting up lots of meetings regardless of whether they achieve anything or not (the war in Georgia, for everybody's information, ended after a fashion, precisely when the Russians were ready to move and not a moment before, Sarkozy or no Sarkozy) and to have the Commission President endorsing you, then Sarkozy has it made. What will happen in January when he will have to go back to being a French President, no longer un Chauve-Souris?