But on the other hand, the zero-emission and low-carbon development is new for everyone and the world is looking at the solutions. "So China and Germany should be the two pioneering countries to push such an agenda at G20 summits," he said.

China has global proposals in the pipeline, adding that the Belt and Road initiative should be the model of new type of global cooperation linking growth and sustainability.

In Europe, the European Union has offered a 315-billion-euro investment scheme, which has also focused on infrastructure. "Both projects are not visible at the G20 platforms and when China and Germany hold presidency, we can argue that we have sustainable growth tools in the pipeline to achieve sustainable growth," he said.

"China and Germany and Europe could drive the discussion. There is a lot of work to communicate together to make these two visible."

In fact, China and European Union have entered into initial agreement to forge synergy of these two investment packages but so far there has not been much progress.

In terms of Sino-EU relations, Messner said the European Union has been riven by internal problems, which has consuming a lot of political resources.

"This is European problem, correctly. Europe should be a strong international actor. Europe has a lot of problems, ranging from Greece to Brexit, and so international power is weak," he said.

Messner said both China and EU have great potential in infrastructural cooperation but they haven't yet made global case for it.

"So the G20 presidencies of China and Germany are a very good opportunity to make it," he said.

He said currently, Europe has a lot of debate on declining social inclusion and the 2030 agenda of United Nations is about green, social and inclusive development, so to construct a social-inclusive market economy should be high on G20 agenda as well when Germany takes reins."

Messner is also concerned about global governance and global leadership. Citing Wolfgang Ischinger, chairman of the Munich Security Conference since 2008, who said the world might be in an era of erosion of global governance system, he said it is part of a strong message.

"The G20 is important actor in organizing global governance. So the Hangzhou and next Hamburg summit should make the global players renew their commitment in cooperation, and build up global governance and global leadership," said Messner."So the presidency should look at the consensus which is both important and possible."

Messner said his institute aims to work as the bridge of the two summits of this year and next.

In recent years, think-tanks, as well as businesses and womens' groups, have become closely involved in the G20 process and they formed a group called T20 to formulate suggestions and reports for the governments and presidency countries.

Being a globally influential think tank, Messner's institute and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy have been jointly entrusted with the support of Germany's G20 presidency next year. The two institutes are tasked with chairing and organizing the so-called T20 process.

He said Germany is preparing the priorities for the coming presidency and once this is developed, his institute will submit policy suggestions.

"And of course, we will go beyond national interest and focus on global economy and keep on the continuation of China's presidency," said Messner.

The author is deputy chief of China Daily European Bureau.

fujing@chinadaily.com.cn