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“EU states fail to cobble together €200bn for IMF,” headlines the EUobserver, after eurozone countries agreed on 19 December to pay €150bn to a special IMF fund to fight off attacks on eurozone sovereign bonds and banks. However, they “failed to reach their total ceiling of €200bn among all EU states, as pledged at a summit on 9 December,” the Brussels based news site notes.
Germany will be the largest contributor, with €41.5 billion, followed by France (€31.4bn), Spain (€14.8bn) and the Netherlands (€13.6bn). euro-countries already under an EU-IMF bail-out - Greece, Ireland and Portugal - are not listed as contributors. IMF- supported EU countries outside the common currency - Hungary, Romania and Latvia - will also not be coughing up. Lithuania, still recovering from the financial crisis, and Bulgaria, the EU's poorest member, are not participating, either.
Britain, however, refused to contribute to the fund. According to the Financial Times, British Chancellor George Osborne told his EU counterparts that the “UK would not offer any additional IMF funds unless it was part of a broader international effort”. The London daily writes that -
Mr Osborne also reiterated the UK government’s stance that the IMF’s mission was to protect “countries – not currencies” and that Britain believed the 17 eurozone members should take more decisive action to tackle the crisis themselves.
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Süddeutsche Zeitungnotes that Osborne’s call for a “broader international effort” is unlikely given that G-20 states such as the US will not participate. It nevertheless headlines that “Poland and Denmark have sprung to the euro’s assistance,” after the two non-euro states agreed to add to the compromised €150 billion fund an extra €6 billion and €5.5bn respectively.
Nevertheless, Britain’s refusal “puts pressure on other euro-outs to top up their share of the remaining €50bn to be raised,” writes the EUobserver. Calculating that the fund is still short of €24 billion with potential top-ups from Prague (€3.5 billion) and Stockholm €11bn, it concludes that -
Parliamentary approval is needed in several of these contributing countries.
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