IMF Chides EU for Critically Incomplete Crisis Response
IMF Chides EU for Critically Incomplete Crisis Response
The International Monetary Fund urged European policymakers to deepen the financial and fiscal ties within the euro area with some urgency to restore sagging confidence in the global financial system.
The IMF’s stark tone on the euro area debt crisis in its semi-annual checkup of the world’s financial health was in marked contrast to the mood in Europe, where a European Central Bank decision to buy bonds of countries that accept an assistance program has removed immediate concerns about the survival of the euro.
“Despite many important steps already taken by policymakers, this agenda remains critically incomplete, exposing the euro area to a downward spiral of capital flight, breakup fears and economic decline,” the IMF said in its Global Financial Stability Report (GFSR) released on Wednesday.
It said the euro area’s debt crisis was the main threat to global financial stability, which had weakened in the last six months to leave confidence “very fragile”.
The euro area’s plodding progress means European banks are likely to offload $2.8 trillion in assets over two years to cut their risk exposure, an increase of $200 billion from a prediction six months ago, the IMF estimated. That could shrink credit supply in the periphery by 9 percent by the end of 2013, crimping economic growth.
The report adds to a gloomy backdrop ahead of the IMF’s semi-annual meeting to be held in Tokyo later this week, which will gather the world’s financial leaders.
On Tuesday, the Fund said the global economic slowdown was worsening as it cut its growth forecasts for the second time since April and warned U.S. and European policymakers that failure to fix their economic ills would prolong the slump.
A scenario where Europe muddles through, addressing haphazardly each new flare-up in the protracted crisis rather than adopting a comprehensive plan, would prove costly, Jose Vinals, director of the IMF’s monetary and capital markets department and the main author of the financial stability report, said.
“The more time that goes by without a complete solution, the more are the eventual costs for everybody of resolving the crisis,” he told Reuters in an interview.
Europe’s troubles should also serve as a lesson to the heavily indebted United States and Japan that delaying the necessary policy adjustments until markets force their hands would lead to “harsher economic outcomes”, Vinals told a briefing.
“We should not let the current market conditions, which have improved, lead to a false sense of security,” he said.