Labour MEP attends IMF, World Bank annual meeting

Labour MEP Edward Scicluna this week attended the annual general meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank (WB) Group held in Tokyo, Japan.

"It is customary for the annual IMF/WB meetings to serve in putting peer pressure on a number of countries and regions to confrom with the latest economic and financial consensus. This time it was the Eurozone's turn to come under fire," Scicluna said during his speech.

The IMF, together with a number of world experts told European and US economic decision-makers to be more proactive in solving their financial and economic problems in view of the protracted recovery from the crises.

Lately the IMF revised its global growth forecast downwards to 3.3%, with the Eurozone predicted to suffer an even worse contraction than was expected.

Scicluna was also a guest of the Institute of International Finance (IIF) and the Group of Thirty at their meetings in Tokyo. He said that the even the IMF itself had come under heavy criticism for its handling of the global crises.

"What really emerged is that austerity programmes cannot be relied upon during a recession under a fixed exchange rate regime. We need to take a more gradual path to recovery in order to create jobs and avoid further poverty increases," Scicluna said.