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The European Commission insisted Thursday that next leader of the International Monetary Fund must come from the 27-nation European Union, a stance backed by the Germany, the continent’s economic heavyweight.
Frenchman Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigned as IMF chief Wednesday, saying he wants to devote “all his energy” to fighting sexual assault charges in New York.
The move heated up cross-border debate over his successor, with Europe aggressively staking its traditional claim to the job to ensure that Europe’s debt crisis is given priority. Fast-growing nations such as China, Brazil and South Africa are trying to break Europe’s grip on an organization empowered to direct billions of dollars to stabilize the global economy.
EU Commission spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen said the EU wants continuity at the helm of the IMF and said its members can “identify strong candidates in the midst of the European Union.”
In Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel pushed for a quick decision on a successor to Strauss-Kahn and underlined her hopes that a European will get the job.
“It is of great significance, of course, that we find a quick solution,” she said in Berlin Thursday, without naming specific candidates.
The IMF’s executive board released a letter from Strauss-Kahn on Wednesday in which he denied the allegations lodged against him but said with “sadness” he felt he must resign, to protect his family and the IMF.
“It is with infinite sadness that I feel compelled today to present to the executive board my resignation from my post of managing director of the IMF,” the five-paragraph letter said. “I think at this time first of my wife – whom I love more than anything – of my children, of my family, of my friends. I think also of my colleagues at the Fund. Together we have accomplished such great things over the last three years and more.
“I deny with the greatest possible firmness all of the allegations that have been made against me.”
Source : Ap, Brussels
