In a webcast for the London Summit website, Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Jan Peter Balkenende spoke of his country’s commitment to making the Summit a success.

The immediate task for global leaders was ‘creating the conditions for restoring global growth, and defending jobs and prosperity,’ he said. A key question over the longer team was ‘how to create a more responsible form of globalisation.’

While the current crisis shows that some of the concerns about globalisation are not unfounded, there is no alternative: ‘Emerging economies, developing countries and industrialised countries – all have an interest in a responsible and sustainable form of globalisation.’

Evidence of the progress made since the G20 Summit in Washington in December 2008 is the willingness among world leaders to strengthen regulation and supervision in the financial sector, he said.

Calling for a stronger set of common values and principals guiding our economic activities, Mr Balkenende said, ‘I hope that, building on the strong convergence of economic systems in the past 20 years, London will be the starting point for a new global consensus.’