Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister, threatens to walk out of the London G20 summit unless France gets its way on tougher financial regulation. The toppled Czech Prime Minister, Mirek Topolanek, who happens to hold the EU presidency, describes the US fiscal stimulus as “the road to hell”.

Finance ministers from the G20 countries are meeting in London this weekend to prepare for the global economic summit at the start of April. Expectations are high. But what will the summit be about?

The debate about sovereign wealth funds will return as global growth and commodity prices recover. European governments have been right to reject new EU rules on SWFs, and instead support multilateral efforts to set voluntary standards.