MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Emerging nations ready to support the Euro but demand IMF reforms

BRICS nations ”are ready to take part in joint efforts”, said Russian minister Sergei Lavrov

Major emerging economies are ready to provide financial help to the Euro zone via the International Monetary Fund but in return want commitments to reform the IMF to be implemented, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday.

The so-called BRICS nations “are ready to take part in joint efforts, including the provision of credits, under those rules and channels that exist in the IMF” Lavrov told a news briefing in Moscow.

Lavrov spoke before IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde was due to meet President Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow for talks expected to focus on how cash-rich emerging economies can support Europe's struggle to contain its sovereign debt crisis.

His comments reinforced the joint position towards managing the Euro-zone sovereign debt crisis taken by the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – at last week's Group of 20 summit in Cannes, France.

They also reflected the aversion of Russia, holder of the world's third-largest foreign exchange reserves, to directly supporting the Euro zone's common bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF).

“It will hardly be possible by simply handing out money to resolve problems that are systemic in character and which affect the financial stability and integrity not only of the Euro zone but of the global financial system” Lavrov said.

“Recent events show that the consequences of the 2008 crisis have not passed and that the work started by the G20 right after the crisis has not been finished.

”This work needs to be completed – above all concerning the full implementation of agreements that were reached earlier on the deep reform of the IMF and the international financial system as a whole”, insisted the Russian minister.

Later in the day the head of the IMF urged the Euro zone to redouble efforts to overcome its sovereign debt crisis and said the global economy faced increasing risks of a slowdown.

“The economy in general is in a dangerous and uncertain phase - there is clearly a darkening outlook and adverse risks,” Christine Lagarde said in a speech to students during her first visit to Moscow since taking charge at the IMF.

She called on the partners in the Euro zone to step up their efforts to overcome the currency union's debt issues and restore confidence.