Thierry de Montbrial, Director General and Founder of the French Institute for International Relations and President and Founder of the World Policy Conference, has defended the setting up of a European Monetary Fund promoted by the European Union (UE) for controlling crises such as that which is affecting Greece and the stability of the Euro in his acceptance speech into the Real Academia de Ciencias Económicas y Financieras as Corresponding Member for France. Likewise he highlighted the need for a re-structuring of the G-20, which would convert it into the main guarantee for international economic and financial stability.

At the Solemn Session presided over by the President of the RACEF, Jaime Gil Aluja, the new Academy Member gave his acceptance speech on the subject of “L’Economie politique entre science, ideologie et gouvernance. Réflexions autour de la premier grand crise du XXIe siècle”, where he considers that the UE does not have the necessary mechanisms for facing the current crisis neither to enforce its economic policy and that neither the G-20 the necessary legitimacy and independence for exercising the role of international referee. “It is important for the credibility of European construction to avoid having to resort to the assistance of the IMF – argued De Montbrial with regard to the eventual intervention of the Fund in Greece. It is possible that this may imply the setting up of new institutions, such as the European Monetary Fund, as well as a New Agreement, with a social dimension and a degree of fiscal harmonisation”.

For the G-20, the Corresponding Member also called for a Convention which would allow it to promote “policies for the medium and long term in order to be able to reabsorb the excess of liquidity and reduce the levels of indebtedness, or to avoid imbalances such as the deficit of the American balance of payments or the Chinese surplus”, among others.

The reply speech was given by the Vice-President of the RACEF Lorenzo Gascón.