"Germany refuses to bow to US in battle for top IMF job"

[Carl Remick]

[The plot thickens.]

Germany refuses to bow to US in battle for top IMF job

Berlin, March 3 (AFP) - Relations between Germany and the United States 
appeared strained on Friday in the battle for the top job at the 
International Monetary Fund, but Germany seemed set to stand by its man, 
Caio Koch-Weser.

The current deadlock would not poison relations altogether, German 
politicians said.

"It's like a family where the parents are constantly telling their offspring 
to grow up. But when they finally do, the parents are unhappy," said Gernot 
Erler, a leading member of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's SPD party, in a 
radio interview on Friday.

Americans clearly had a problem with the fact that Europe was becoming more 
independent, Erler told DeutschlandRadio.

It was not a question of whether Koch-Weser or anyone else would be 
acceptable to the US, but more a fundamental question of relations between 
the European Union and the United States, Erler argued.

Caio Koch-Weser, 55, a state secretary and top-ranking civil servant in the 
German finance ministry, was named on Tuesday as the European Union's 
official candidate for the post of secretary general of the IMF.

But the United States immediately made it known that it opposed the EU 
choice, saying Koch-Weser, a dual Brazilian/German citizen, was not able to 
command international respect, despite the fact that he had worked for the 
World Bank for 26 years.

Neverthless, in an informal straw poll of the 24-member IMF executive board 
in Washington late on Thursday, Koch-Weser came far ahead of his two 
opponents, the acting IMF chief and US national, Stanley Fischer, and a 
Japanese former vice finance minister, Eisuke Sakakibara.

The Japanese daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported on Friday that Koch-Weser 
had won 43 percent of the votes.

Quoting IMF insiders, the newspaper said that his opponent Fischer gained 
just 12 percent in the poll, while the Japanese candidate, Sakakibara, won 
only nine percent.

Michael Steiner, foreign policy advisor to German Chancellor Gerhard 
Schroeder, said on Friday that the fact that Koch-Weser had won the biggest 
share of the votes was an "encouraging signal" and was "remarkable" given 
the current events.

"It encourages us to stick to our guns," Steiner said.

Earlier, Chancellor Schroeder had also welcomed the outcome as a sign of 
"European solidarity".

But the Japanese newspaper reported said that 36 percent of IMF board 
members had abstained.

US President Bill Clinton has suggested that Germany name a new candidate 
for the post.

In Europe, too, there were signs that EU support for Koch-Weser might be 
waning.

EU Commission President Romano Prodi said in an interview with the Financial 
Times Deutschland: "It's clear that nobody can be named against the wishes 
of the United States any more than he or she could against that of the 
Europeans," Prodi said.

"We're in a situation of reciprocal veto."

Prodi's spokesman insisted later that Prodi and the EU remained fully behind 
Koch-Weser and that if the United States accepted the candidacy, then 
consensus would have been achieved; and many steps were being taken to bring 
this about.

An official of the governing German Social Democratic Party, Gernot Erler, 
insisted that Koch-Weser was not out of the running, but since he was the 
European candidate "any decision to pull him out of the race would have to 
be a European one".

And a new European candidate might face the same difficulties in being 
accepted by the US, he argued.

Steiner declined to speculate whether an alternative candidate would be 
named.

The next move would be discussed by Schroeder and the EU president a meeting 
later on Friday, Steiner said.

Leading German politicians were confident, however, that the current 
deadlock would not poison German-US relations in the long term.

German defence minister Rudolf Scharping said that European and US interests 
and judgements were "so highly identical, that a case such as this, as 
maddening as it might be, will not tilt our relationship out of balance".

And German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, told journalists on Friday: "I 
see no lasting overall burden in US-German relations."

[end]

Carl



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