The International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn urged European Union (EU) member states on Saturday to coordinate their individual responses to the financial crisis.
"What is needed in Europe is coordination, whatever the method. What counts above all is coordination and the will not to act each for himself as we have seen a little bit in some European cases," IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn told reporters after a meeting here with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Sarkozy is hosting a meeting with his counterparts from Germany, Britain and Italy, joined by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet and Eurogroup Chairman Jean-Claude Juncker.
The mini EU summit was designed to coordinate response of EU countries to the escalating financial crisis after several European banks fell prey to the crisis in the past week, prompting EU governments to infuse billions of euros to keep them afloat.
Strauss-Kahn acknowledged it was harder for Europe than the United States to come up with a common response because of the political structure of the EU.
Till now, all bank rescue efforts in Europe have been on national level or by several EU member states on an ad hoc basis. There was virtually no EU-wide coordination in place.
Sarkozy urged EU governments on Friday to avoid causing any "undesirable impact" on their partners and to abide by EU laws when rescuing banks or stabilizing the financial system.
His plea was obviously referring to Ireland's recent decision to guarantee all the savings at Irish-owned banks.
The unilateral move by Irish government angered other EU countries, notably Britain, which worried about a flurry of savings withdrawals from their own banks to Irish peers.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Friday that the summit should warn EU members against action which hits neighboring countries.
With the financial crisis spreading, the prospect of economic growth has darkened in both the United States and Europe.
Strauss-Kahn said the IMF would revise down its world economic growth forecasts.
"The world economic situation is very worrying and the IMF is going to publish growth forecasts that are markedly lower than what we have had until now," he said.
Source:Xinhua
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