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Verbatim report of proceedings
Thursday, 16 February 2006 - Strasbourg OJ edition

Strategic review of the IMF (debate)
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  Jean-Louis Bourlanges (ALDE), draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on International Trade. (FR) Mr President, the Committee on International Trade has issued an opinion that very closely matches Mr Hamon's excellent report, and I think that they really do contain very convergent opinions and very similar concerns.

We have three main concerns. First of all, like the rapporteur, we aspire to better coordination of all development policies. We have put our finger on a contradiction: the International Monetary Fund is a part of a whole, with a specific responsibility, but at the same time it is much more than a part of a whole, because, as the lender of last resort, it has, as Mr Hamon has just mentioned, a sort of de facto pre-eminence that is not without its problems, resulting in a quest for better coordination with other international organisations, particularly the World Trade Organisation, the International Labour Organisation and the World Health Organisation. We need to think carefully about these coordination methods.

Secondly, we want to see a redistribution of powers. We do not want to succumb to an excessive demographic fever that would cut us off from the global economic reality, but we feel that, as it stands, the emerging economies are not adequately represented and that power must be redistributed to those economies.

Finally, we, like the rapporteur, would like Europe to speak with one voice and act as one. It really is distressing to see that Europe, which, across all the Member States, has almost twice as many votes as the United States, counts for so little within the organisation. Can we start moving towards the single seat right now? Probably not, but we do need to start moving towards informal models comparable with shareholder agreements, starting with the Eurozone and with the aim of subsequently getting the whole of the European Union to speak with one voice. Those are our concerns, and I do not think that they contradict Mr Hamon's.

 
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