WASHINGTON, March 3 (AFP): The head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, said yesterday he was concerned about the European Union's ability to coordinate a common response to the global economic and financial crises.
"Obviously, this weekend, the Europeans were not at their best. They were almost unable to find any kind of common solution," Strauss-Kahn said in an interview with National Public Radio, a day after an EU emergency summit in Brussels.
"So that's the reason why I'm a bit worried about the implementation of the right policies, especially in the bank restructuring," he said.
Strauss-Kahn's comments came after EU leaders on Sunday ruled out a regional bailout plan for eastern Europe despite a Hungarian warning of a "new iron curtain."
The European leaders promised to assist any of the bloc's 27 member nations but stopped short of agreeing on a region-wide package to help eastern Europe cope with the turmoil.
EU leaders are expected to adopt a final common policy at their next summit, on March 19 and 20, for dealing with the soured assets weighing down banks' balance sheets.
According to Strauss-Kahn, a former French finance minister, "as far as the different stimulus packages are concerned, what has been done is almost OK.
"But the second leg of the plan has to be cleaning the balance sheets of the banks, and it doesn't go very quick."
Strauss-Kahn highlighted the lack of a single economic policy in the 16- nation eurozone.
"There's no really built-in mechanism in the eurozone to deal with this kind of question. That's probably the reason why the head of state governments were a bit uncomfortable with the solution to take," he added.
