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Struggling eurozone economies are hopeful that they might receive more support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after an agreement in principle to expand its resources. Leaders of the 26 European Union member states that signed up to the fiscal compact at the European Council agreed to provide the fund with €200 billion in the form of bilateral loans. 

But there are already indications that this total will not be achieved. Václav Klaus, the president of the Czech Republic, said on Monday (12 December) that his country would not contribute, and Mikolaj Dowgielewicz, the EU’s affairs minister of Poland, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU’s Council of Ministers, acknowledged that the final total could be less than agreed upon at the summit. Eurozone member states said that this would be confirmed by the start of next week.

In any case, some EU officials strongly oppose channelling money from EU member states through the IMF and back to the eurozone’s stricken economies. And Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), speaking just before the European Council, said that the idea was not “within the spirit” of the EU treaties, which bans the monetisation of debt. “The spirit of the treaty is that one cannot channel money in this way to circumvent the treaty provisions,” he said. “If national central banks want to lend to the IMF and then to Indonesia or China, that’s fine. But if the IMF uses this money exclusively in the euro area, we think it’s not compatible with the EU treaty.”

Breaking rules

This view was supported by Andreas Dombret, a member of the board of Germany’s Bundesbank, who told the German newspaper Handelsblatt on Sunday (11 December) that this sort of financing was “a clear breach of the prohibition of monetary financing of states”.

“The money cannot migrate into some sort of special pot that is used exclusively for Europe,” he said.

Christine Lagarde, the IMF’s managing director, persists in her belief that the enhanced capacity would help the IMF to “fulfil its systemic responsibilities”, which she said was “especially important given the ongoing economic slowdown and financial market tensions”.

“I appreciate this demonstration of leadership from Europe,” she said, and, referring to emerging economies such as Brazil and Russia, added that she was “hopeful that others will also do their part.”