WASHINGTON (MNI) – It was somewhat odd to see U.S. Treasury
Secretary Timothy Geithner at the informal meeting of European finance
ministers and central bankers in Wroclaw, Poland last week, European
Central Bank Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny said Friday.
Speaking to journalists during the Annual Meeting of the IMF and
World Bank, the head of the Austrian National Bank said Geithner may not
have been well informed about how European institutions work.
“It was, I have to admit, a little strange to see the American
finance minister alongside the European finance ministers and central
bank governors,” he said. “I am also not sure that he was really well
informed about the institutional pre-conditions” in Europe.
Still, Geithner’s presence in Poland was regarded by participants
as part of a “dialogue that is certainly not negative,” Nowotny said,
though he added that the better informed all sides are, “the more
fruitful” such a dialogue is.
Both parties have an interest in stabilizing the economic
situation, because it is clear to both that they are connected to one
another. There is no country or continent that is economically an
island, the Austrian central bank chief said.
It is nonetheless the case that “there are indeed, in part,
different basic positions” on the two sides of the Atlantic, he said. He
noted that the U.S. is more in favor of expansionary policies while
Europe “and the European Central Bank” are partisans of fiscal
consolidation.
“That is a certain divergence with which we have to live,” he said.
–Frankfurt bureau tel.: +49-69-720142. Email: dbarwick@marketnews.com
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