30 THE NEXT... G8
THE G3

COMETH THE hour, cometh the mandate. And if 2009 was the year that world leaders scrambled to deal with the global financial crisis, it was also the year they ditched the G8 group of industrial nations — the US, UK, France, Italy, Canada, Japan, Germany and Russia — in favour of an expanded G20 as the principal forum for crafting international economic policy.

Representing 90% of global gross national product, the G20 gives a seat at the top table for the first time to China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea and Turkey.

Even before the dust has settled on this seismic geopolitical shift, cemented by US President Obama’s declaration at September’s G20 summit in Pittsburgh, sceptics are suggesting the G20 is too unwieldy to agree joint policy fast and a more effective group would be a G2 consisting only of the US and China — or perhaps a G3, with Europe the third party shaping a new, tripolar world.

“It became clear in Pittsburgh that it was China and the US, then the rest,” says Dr Paola Subacchi, research director of International Economics at Chatham House. “We saw a clear line between Washington and Beijing and a shift in power from the Atlantic to the Pacific.”

So where does that leave Europe? “Germany is still very important economically, but is that enough to justify a G3? Frankly I don’t see that it has sufficient weight to balance the triangle,” says Subacchi. “Likewise, the UK plays an important role in dialogue with the US, but that is not enough. But China seems to prefer looking at and dealing with the EU rather than with each member state. So there is an opportunity to remodel the bilateral US-China relationship into something in which Europe has a place.”

This would certainly make trade sense. China is the EU’s second biggest trading partner behind the US, and the biggest source of imports; the EU is China’s biggest trading partner. And, in monetary terms, the euro is the key second reference currency behind a weakening US dollar.

But Dr Subacchi dismisses the idea of any formal G3 grouping, arguing that there is no room to schedule any more summits. “There is simply no way to digest a new configuration,” she says.

Besides, it is the G20 that may hold the best prospect for Europe’s global ambitions. It secured eight seats at the Pittsburgh table — for the UK, France, Germany, Italy, the European Union itself and, by invitation, Spain and the Netherlands — while the likes of Brazil, China, India and the US have to make do with just one seat apiece.

31 THE NEXT... LEGAL BATTLE
TECH WARS

EXPECT NEXT year’s papers to be crammed with details of what is set to be a mega court battle between the mobile phone industry leader and its fastest-growing challenger over one of the hottest consumer products.

Finland’s Nokia filed a lawsuit in October in a US federal court in Delaware accusing Apple of infringing 10 Nokia patents in all 30 million of its flagship iPhones sold since the US company entered the mobile market in 2007. Hinting at the content of what will likely be a long-running case, Ilkka Rahnasto, Nokia’s legal chief has accused Apple of seeking “a free ride on the back of Nokia’s innovation”.

Nokia’s offensive comes as the company goes head-to-head with Apple in the exploding smartphone market. Nokia remains the biggest maker of smartphones, which offer services such as email, music and video, but is losing market share to the iPhone and the BlackBerry range of devices made by Canada’s Research in Motion. In October, Apple, which has sold a record 7.4m iPhones in the third quarter of this year, reported a 47% jump in third-quarter profits just days after Nokia said it had fallen into loss.

32 THE NEXT... BERLIN
ISTANBUL

TWO WEEKS into the New Year, Istanbul will mark the start of its turn as European Capital of Culture with a huge open-air party.

The accolade is timely. Turkey’s first city has spent the past decade shrugging off its musty Ottoman atmosphere and embracing a more modern vibe. Sleek boutique hotels such as the Witt Suites, Sumahan on the Water and the über-trendy W have put Istanbul on the map for Europe’s weekend crowd, while the opening of Turkey’s first contemporary art museum, Istanbul Modern, in 2004 and ex-industrial cultural complex Santral three years later have put the city on the visual arts map.

There’s more to come. Next year will see the launch of The Museum of Innocence, a collection inspired by the Orhan Pamuk novel and celebrating the cultural life of the city from the 1950s to the present day; the start of the conversion of the former Hasanpasa Gas-works at Kadıköy on the Asian side into a vast arts centre; the culmination of the two-year Lives and Works in Istanbul programme; and a host of musical and theatrical events.

Despite all this, Istanbul may struggle to establish its cultural credentials. Arrests of local women for breaking the city’s dress code, as well as national bans on social networking sites show that Turkey still has a long way to go before it can join Europe’s avant-garde.