Lagarde Stresses There is ‘Less Than Three Months’ to Save the Euro
June 14th, 2012
We must save the euro “in less than three months”, said the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, in an interview on CNN. That’s the length of time that the IMF have given for the measures implemented in the Eurozone to bear fruit and save the single currency.
With this statement, Lagarde was responding to Hungarian-born billionaire U.S. investor, George Soros, the man who won the Bank of England billions in 1992 by exploiting the weakness of the pound, and who had said that Europe has three months to save the single currency. Soros had said that “the authorities have a margin of three months during which they can correct their mistakes and even reverse the current momentum.” He has now seen his forecast shortened by the IMF chief’s statement.
“The construction of the eurozone has taken time and is a work in progress right now,” said Lagarde. Moreover, El Mundo reported that the IMF managing director declined to comment on the rumours pointing to a possible departure of Greece from the eurozone, stressing “It will be a matter of political determination”.
In the CNN interview, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund also apologised for some statements over the Greek people which had caused unrest and criticism from Athens. Lagarde had suggested at the time that the Greeks did not pay all their taxes and claimed that they seemed to be more concerned about the situation of the children in Niger than the population of Athens.
Lagarde said it was a statement made “in an inflammatory context and which offended” people, “but in any case, I do think the fiscal commitment is a necessary tool in order to restore the status of any country, including Greece.”
On the debate between austerity or political commitment to promoting growth, Lagarde commited to “gradually reducing the fiscal deficit” in a “solid” manner.
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