Obama to press Europeans on growth at G20 meeting

President Obama expects to hear more from eurozone leaders about what they're doing to kick-start a flailing European economy that's bringing the rest of the world down with it when he meets with world leaders at the G20 summit in Mexico next week, administration officials said. 

“The focus of Los Cabos will be supporting growth and ensuring that our European partners are escalating their response to reinforce financial stability, recognizing the stakes are high for all of us,” Treasury Under Secretary for International Affairs Lael Brainard told reporters at a pre-summit briefing Friday. 

“What we expect to see at Los Cabos is European leaders articulating how they're going to move forward on escalating their response to the crisis," she said. "The actions that we're looking forward to hearing more about and that [President Obama] is talking to European leaders about are areas like the ... banking union, working to enforce their reinforce their firewalls, working to reinforce and recalibrate the path of fiscal consolidation to support growth and charting a sustainable path forward on Greece.”

The G20 meeting will take place Monday and Tuesday, just days after Greek voters head to the polls in what could be a repudiation of their bailout terms and the first step toward the country's expulsion from the euro. Brainard sought to play down those concerns Friday, arguing that it will take time to know the “full outcome” of the elections because Greece is a parliamentary system.

Administration officials also confirmed that Obama will have a number of one-on-one meetings with world leaders at the summit, including with host Felipe Calderon of Mexico and Vladimir Putin of Russia on Monday and Chinese President Hu Jintao on Tuesday.