Alistair Darling talks ahead of the G20 finance summit

G20 leaders are split on how to address the global downturn, with some European countries reluctant to spend their way out of the recession. The US is among those swallowing Prime Minister Gordon Brown's medicine by demanding that more money be thrown at the problem. Washington and the UK are urging the biggest industrialised countries to spend 2 per cent of their gross domestic product to boost demand and pull the global economy out of its tailspin However, Germany and France say the focus should be executing existing promises and taming market excess. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel: "We consider that in Europe we have already invested a lot for the recovery and that the problem is not about spending more, but putting in place a system of regulation so that the economic and financial catastrophe that the world is seeing does not reproduce itself." Russia is opposing the 2 per cent fiscal stimulus, while China and Japan are falling into line with UK and US thinking. They backed the need for more government spending ahead of the talks in Horsham, Surrey. Finance ministers of the 20 leading developed and emerging nations are hoping to agree on a roadmap for tackling the crisis, aiming to pave the way for a broader summit of world leaders on April 2, also in the UK. Downing Street said that there were "ongoing discussions" with other G20 member states on the summit. "We have always made clear that the main objective is to demonstrate that the world is coming together to deal with the common challenges that we face," the Prime Minister's spokesman said.

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ITN | March 13, 2009