German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday called for a U.N. Economic Council similar to the U.N. Security Council as a “compass” to help the world avoid crises like the one hammering the global economy. Merkel told the World Economic Forum that common economic principles need to be enshrined in a new charter for a global economic order, which could form the basis of any such international body. Full IHT article is here.

In a book published last year (Gordian knots of the 21st century) I argued that the world needs to establish the Global Strategic Council, that will be in charge of creating world vision 2020 or 2050. The vision should be based on three pillars of sustainable development: fast growth, environmental sustainability and social cohesion. I calculated simple weight for countries that would qualify for GSC members, based on GDP in PPP terms and on population (with 50% weights). The list with ranks is below:

China (15.4), USA (12.8), India (10.8), Japan (4.3), Brazil (2.8), Germany (2.8),  Russia (2.6), Indonesia (2.4), UK (2.1.), France (2.1). My recommemdation was to limit the GSC to ten members, but if you want to expand the group to 20 then another ten is below:

Mexico (1.9), Italy (1.8), Pakistan (1.6), Spain (1.3), Bangladesh (1.3), South Korea (1.3), Nigeria (1.2), Canada (1.2), Iran (1.1), Turkey (1.0).

I am glad that today politicians grew up enough to notice, that the current global governance setup does not reflect the needs of the 21st century global economy.  You can also read my article New World Order on opendemocracy that explain my view.

How to proceed? Barack Obama and Hu Jintao should jointly organize a meeting to be held in China and invite 10 leaders from the list above. The goal of the summit should be establishment of the world vision and the operational plan to achieve this vision. I would waste no time for G20 meetings, as the future ones are likely to be as important as the last one, i.e. useless and meaningless.