LONDON — They mingled cordially and dined on Scottish salmon, and not a single person stormed out of the dinner of world leaders at the British prime minister's home late Wednesday.
In fact, the place cards even seated President Obama next to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who just a few hours earlier had dissed the American plan to rescue the global economy.
So it was a fitting opening to the Group of 20 economic summit that formally begins here today: Everyone was polite and civil, even as disagreement among them simmers.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has threatened to walk out of the summit if his demands for global financial regulation aren't met. And on Wednesday, Sarkozy joined Merkel in a public statement against the idea of more government spending to spur the economy, an important feature of the U.S. plan.
The two leaders have increasingly coordinated their messages of greater financial regulation in recent days as a counterweight to a British and American call for more fiscal spending. In fact, at Wednesday's joint news conference at a London hotel, they even looked like reverse images of each other, with Sarkozy dressed in a dark suit and white shirt and Merkel in a white suit and dark blouse.
"France and Germany will speak with a single voice," Sarkozy said.
The flip side to the Merkel-Sarkozy show was the other dynamic duo of this week's summit: Obama and his host and ally, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who held a news conference of their own Wednesday.
Brown praised the American leadership on regulating the financial system, on recapitalizing banks and restructuring the U.S. banking system.
He said he thought that leaders were "within a few hours" of agreeing on a global plan for economic recovery and reform.
"Never before has the world come together in this way to deal with an economic crisis," Brown said. "Any of the crises that we've seen since the Second World War, you have not had this level of international cooperation. And never before have the world come together with so many countries represented from so many different continents to address this crisis."
As for Sarkozy's threat, Brown said he was sure that things would work out.
"I'm confident that President Sarkozy will not only be here for the first course of our dinner," he said, "but will still be sitting as we complete our dinner this evening."
