IMF "indispensable" part of rescue programmes -ECB's Weidmann

[FRANKFURT] The International Monetary Fund is a key part of bailout programmes extended to over-indebted eurozone countries, Jens Weidmann, a member of the European Central Bank's governing council said on Tuesday.

"The IMF has become an indispensable part of these programmes," Mr Weidmann said in introductory remarks before a speech by the IMF's managing director, Christine Lagarde, in Frankfurt.

Mr Weidmann's remarks emphasise the ECB's insistence on keeping the Fund in a group of three institutions responsible for Greece's new rescue programme, which is currently being negotiated.

At the weekend, after Internet site Wikileaks published an apparent transcript of an IMF conference call, Ms Lagarde denied that IMF staff might threaten to pull out of the Greek bailout as a tactic to force more European debt relief for Greece.

REUTERS