July 11, 2007	Wednesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 25, 1428

BRUSSELS, July 10: France won key EU backing on Tuesday for former French finance minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn to lead the International Monetary Fund despite British calls for a candidate from outside Europe.

Paris secured a tentative victory just hours after French President Nicolas Sarkozy clashed in Brussels with finance ministers from the 13-nations sharing the euro on Monday over his controversial budget plans.

“Dominique Strauss-Kahn became the Europeans’ candidate for the managing director of the IMF,” new French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde told journalists on the margins of a meeting of EU finance ministers in Brussels.

“That will allow him to start a campaign and consultation process with all the members of the IMF,” she added.

Under a long-standing and increasingly criticised gentleman’s agreement, Europe chooses the head of the IMF and the United States picks the president of the World Bank, the IMF’s sister institution.

Developing countries for years have protested in vain against the tradition of Europeans running the IMF and Americans leading the World Bank and have called for open competition for both posts.

Welcoming the EU support with “warm thanks,” Strauss-Kahn said in a statement from Paris: “I am now going to work to convince the other concerned parties.”

The 58-year-old economics professor had wanted to stand against Sarkozy in the French presidential elections in May, but he lost the Socialist party nomination to Segolene Royal.A fluent English and German speaker, Strauss-Kahn won wide respect from his European counterparts while he was finance minister.

However, he was forced to step down over accusations that he received payment from a student health insurance fund known as the MNEF for legal work that he did not perform, although he was cleared of any wrongdoing in late 2001.

British finance minister Alistair Darling backed Strauss-Kahn as “a very credible candidate,” but said the British government “wants to see what other candidates there may be put forward from other parts of the IMF.”

Poland had early on Tuesday announced its support for a former Polish prime minister, Marek Belka, but did not push his candidacy as a broad majority emerged in favour of the Frenchman.

The finance ministers scrambled to find a replacement for the current IMF Managing Director Rodrigo Rato after the Spaniard’s surprise announcement late last month that he would step down in October.

While welcoming Europe's support for him, Strauss-Kahn sought to reach out to fast-growing developing countries.

“It will be necessary to redefine the Fund’s mission as well as the respective place of different partners, especially in giving emerging countries the role they deserve,” he said.—AFP