The pre-summit summit
The fourth emergency European summit in two months kicks off at lunchtime.
It's been called to coordinate a European Union position ahead of next week's Washington meeting on new financial rules.
Even though the economics commissioner Joaquin Almunia says "there is a single vision" there'll be a fair bit of argument about how much detail they should agree today.
The French have come forward with an 11-point plan, ranging from "draw up codes of conduct to address incentives to excessive risk-taking" to "promote a change of culture in the governance of financial institutions towards sustainable value creation."
The British worry is that too much detail will tie European hands in Washington and that the French plan to introduce protectionism in the guise of tighter regulation. There will be no written agreement at the end of today, so we will rely on the news conferences to find out what has happened.
Unusually even the top civil servants won't be in the room: it will be just the prime ministers and presidents plus the French ambassador to the EU, who will then debrief his 26 colleagues.
When I get to hear more I will let you know.
I’m Mark Mardell, the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s North America editor. These are my reflections on American politics, some thoughts on being a Brit living in the USA, and who knows what else? My 
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