Labour

IMF's job should be to support individual countries with solvency crises - Ed Balls

Ed Balls MP, Labour's Shadow Chancellor, said on today’s G20 summit and the Prime Minister’s statement on funding for the IMF: 

“As I said last week on Newsnight, we support an increase in the IMF subscription because of the vital role that the IMF plays in the global economy. But the IMF’s job is to support individual countries with solvency crises, not to solve a structural problem caused by eurozone countries being unable to agree the necessary steps to support and maintain their monetary union. 

“That’s why this summer we said that additional funding for the IMF should be held back until the details of the permanent eurozone bailout fund had been agreed. 

“The only way to properly ensure market confidence in the eurozone is for the European Central Bank, alongside the bailout fund, to be given the political support it needs to act as lender of last resort when liquidity problems arise. That is the logic of the monetary union these 17 countries signed up to.

“So instead of obfuscating and hiding behind fudged words in communiqués, David Cameron and George Osborne should be clear about what’s really going on. They must clarify, as we have consistently said, that there should be no IMF funding to plug the gap in the bailout fund and do the job the ECB should be doing. 

“This summit must also agree a plan for jobs and growth, which is the only solution to the problems we are seeing here in Britain and around the world.”