IMF calls for more common debt for Europe

Brussels In view of the energy crisis, high national debt and the threat to European security, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is calling for a new European Union fund to be fed from common bonds. Such a fund would “improve resilience and address longer-term challenges facing the EU,” writes the IMF in a 49-page analysis. What is meant above all is climate change and energy supply.

With its proposal, the Washington financial institution is getting involved in the debate about revising the debt rules for the euro area. The so-called Maastricht criteria are intended to limit the permissible national debt to 60 percent and the budget deficit to three percent of the national economy.

But they could not prevent the average debt burden in the euro zone from rising to around 100 percent, Italy having to worry about the sustainability of its debt and Greece being saved from bankruptcy in the euro crisis only with aid worth billions.