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World Bank calls on EU to help Central & East Europe

20 February 2009 08:15 (UTC +04:00)

Bakuâ€“ APA-Economics. The European Union should do more to support economies in central and eastern Europe, leading a coordinated global effort to help the region, World Bank President Robert Zoellick was quoted as saying.
â€œIt’s got to have support from the European governments," he said in an interview published in Thursday’s edition of the Financial Times. "It’s 20 years after Europe was united in 1989 - what a tragedy if you allow Europe to split again."
Zoellick said the World Bank was trying to work with the International Monetary Fund and other multilateral institutions to help the region but needed more backing from Brussels, the FT reported.
"There is a disconnect between some of the rhetoric of leaders calling for global this and global that and their own policies," he was quoted as saying.
He also said that "one shoe that hasn’t dropped" yet in terms of fresh blows to the global economy was a sudden currency crisis in an important country.
Meanwhile IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn repeated a warning that a second wave of countries may come knocking on his door for support in the near future.
"I’m afraid that there is a possibility that in the coming weeks and months another couple, maybe more than that, countries will need some support," he told the BBC in an interview.
Strauss-Kahn said emerging economies in particular were likely to need IMF help because capital flows are reversing as western banks and private investors repatriate funds.