Federalists call for a New International Monetary System

In the light of this weekend’s G20 summit, Andrew Duff MEP, President of the Union of European Federalists, calls for the creation of a new international monetary system on the basis of a world standard.

In a statement on Thursday, Duff says:

The full scale of the financial and economic crisis has now become apparent. While European governments have done well to act jointly in the last weeks to re-capitalise Europe’s banks, concerted action must now be taken on a global scale and on a genuinely multilateral basis.

The summit should lay the foundations of a new international monetary system

The summit should lay the foundations of a new international monetary system that would manage the relationships between the world’s major currencies. The powers of a reformed IMF should be boosted to enable it to scrutinise and supervise the macro-economic policies of the industrialised world. The eurogroup should have single unified representation at the IMF.

External supervision of the EU’s economic and monetary policies would put useful extra pressure on EU governments to control their deficits more strictly. World leaders must be bold and clear-sighted in addressing issues of global economic and financial governance. The EU, led by President Sarkozy, should take the lead.

At home, supervision of credit institutions should be reinforced at the EU level, and made much more transparent. Risk management cannot be left to market forces.

The eurozone should be readied to expand more rapidly than expected. Over the medium term it will be essential once again to respect the disciplines of the Stability and Growth Pact — but from now on there must be real political measures to reform the structure of the least competitive European economies."