According to the French Ministry of Agriculture, France will suggest rules to G20’s members in order to limit the influence of operators on the commodity derivatives markets and will also ask for identification of market operators as speculator or commercial.
France will also suggest a system for recording over the counter (OTC) transactions on commodities markets. Nicolas Sarkozy’s priority, as holder of the chair of both the G20 and G8, is to reform the international monetary system and to fight against the volatility of foreign exchange and commodities.
On thursday, addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos, Sarkozy told speculators to be prepared for big losses if they bet against the euro. “Chancellor Merkel and I will never let the euro fall,” he said.
"To those who bet against the euro, watch out for your money (...) because we are fully determined to defend the euro,” he added. "The consequences of a failure of the euro would be so cataclysmic that we could not possibly entertain the idea."
Moreover, Nicolas Sarkozy clashed with the CEO of JP Morgan, who believed that the bulk of the economic and financial crisis was past. He invited him to break with past practices and argued for a strengthening of regulation. Nicolas Sarkozy has invited his audience to refrain from "any ideological reaction", noting that he did not want himself pass for an "obsessed" with regulation that has long been a bogeyman in the financial world.
Few hours before, Gary Cohn, president and COO of Goldman Sachs, expressed concerns about under-regulation, mainly on hedge funds.
Cohn warned that over-regulation of banks could push risky investments and activities into the hands of less regulated institutions like hedge funds
