Malta to cough up €260 million for EU-IMF fund loans
Malta’s contribution is €260 million to IMF eurozone bailout fund. UK will not contribute to fund.
Malta is to contribute €260 million in a loan to the International Monetary Fund, as the United Kingdom decided Monday not to contribute any more money for a eurozone bailout fund, leaving the European Union short of its €200 billion target.
Eurozone countries on Monday agreed to pay €150 billion to the fund, after a three-hour long conference organised by Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg's Prime Minister and head of the informal group of eurozone finance ministers.
Britain refused to contribute to this special fund to be set up for the eurozone rescue, saying it will top up its share to the general IMF reserves. "The UK has always been willing to consider further resources for the IMF, but for its global role and as part of a global agreement," British finance minister George Osborne said in a statement.
Germany will be the largest contributor, with €41.5 billion, followed by France (€31.4bn), Spain (€14.8bn) and the Netherlands (€13.6bn). The Czech Republic has said it would contribute €3.5 billion, Denmark pledged to contribute €5.5bn, while Polish finance minister Jacek Rostowski on Monday gave the figure of €6bn for his country. Sweden may contribute some €11 billion, Svenska Dagebladet reports.
The EU member states under the EU-IMF bail-out - Greece, Ireland and Portugal - are not listed as contributors.
Even IMF-supported EU countries who are not eurozone members - Hungary, Romania and Latvia - will not be contributing to the fund, as well as Lithuania and Bulgaria.
While EU leaders agreed at their last summit on the desire to boost IMF resources, there are doubts about whether the scheme will work, with not just London and Washington unenthusiastic, but Germany's Bundesbank too. "Washington cannot make bilateral loans available to the IMF without Congress approving it," German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told German radio. "There's no chance of that and the US government has always made that clear."
The increase in IMF resources is part of a strategy to strengthen the eurozone's fire-fighting capability and build better defences for the future.