Europeans urged to coordinate in WB, IMF

Senior officials have recently backed closer European government collaboration on World Bank and IMF policies. European Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said the lack of a unified representation of the euro zone at the IMF or at the World Bank is "a strong handicap to our common external relations." Fritz Fischer, a former German Executive Director to the Bank said if current and future EU members pool their voting shares they would have 32.03 percent and 27.91 percent stakes in the World Bank and IMF, overturning the US majority. Such proposals have so far found little interest among government ministers however, who are keen to retain their -governments' individual Board seats.

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Published: 28 January 2003 , last edited: 8 July 2003

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