{ "title": "Press Release: Statement by Christine Lagarde to the IMF Executive Board", "publication": "IMF News, June 23, 2011", "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2015/09/14/01/49/pr11253", "canonical": "https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2015/09/14/01/49/pr11253", "overlayPath": "/en/news/articles/2015/09/14/01/49/pr11253/index.md", "summary": "Press Release No. 11/253", "publishDate": "2011-06-23", "sections": [ { "heading": "Context and procedural details", "content": "- Press Release No. 11/253\n- Date of statement: June 23, 2011\n- Audience: IMF Executive Board\n- Candidate status: Christine Lagarde, candidate for the position of the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)" }, { "heading": "Candidate's framing of the Managing Director role", "content": "- Three key duties of a MD:\n - Duty 1: Chairing the Board\n - Value of a permanent resident Board; Board legitimacy is essential to Fund action.\n - Proposes a Board retreat before the recess to lay foundations of trust and respect.\n - Duty 2: Managing the staff\n - Staff described as the Fund's key asset; staff independence must be protected.\n - Acknowledges \"recent events have left open wounds\" and \"John's departure\" creates a gap.\n - Emphasizes restoring staff pride, integrity, work ethics, and building an integrated, coherent senior management team to overcome \"silo-mentality\", achieve diversity, and gain cohesion and coherence.\n - Calls for focusing on serving the membership and the Fund's higher goal rather than being inward-looking.\n - Duty 3: Representing the institution and bringing a vision\n - MD must lead by example consistent with values of integrity, independence, and discretion.\n - MD shall be the loyal and strong voice of the whole membership, speaking the truth to members, \"be them small or large.\"" }, { "heading": "Direction and priorities for the Fund (next five years)", "content": "- Overarching objective: continuously prove and improve the Fund's legitimacy and effectiveness.\n- Assessment of recent history:\n - Under Dominique Strauss-Kahn's leadership, the Fund \"repositioned itself at the centre of the global economic and financial system\" and learned from the recent financial crisis.\n- Key principles to lead the Fund:\n - Relevance\n - Maintain the Fund's pivotal role in global economic and financial cooperation.\n - Open to work on changes to the legal framework of surveillance such as the \"2007 surveillance decision\" or explore changes to the Articles of Agreement.\n - Responsiveness\n - Enhance capacity to respond to members' needs, with special dedication to the most vulnerable, \"thinking of the low-income countries, especially those in Africa.\"\n - Coordination with partners, including the World Bank, is \"decisive.\"\n - Tougher, more effective, and more consistent surveillance\n - Improve integration of financial sector expertise into surveillance, cooperating with the Financial Stability Board and other relevant bodies.\n - Strengthen multilateral surveillance by addressing global interdependencies; proposes that \"spill-over reports should become a permanent surveillance tool.\"\n - IMF surveillance should factor in structural and public finance issues, as well as social and employment policies.\n - Advocates for a consolidated multilateral surveillance report (pushed at the last IMFC).\n - Sufficient resources and adequate tools\n - Require delivering on commitments made by member countries.\n - Need better leveraging of Fund resources, notably through enhanced cooperation with regional financial arrangements.\n - Ensure Fund capacity to address systemic shocks.\n - Increased legitimacy\n - Implement promptly the historic governance reform agreed last year; France has shown leadership.\n - Commit to continuously adapt representation of the Fund, \"in particular quotas, to changing economic realities.\"\n - Notes \"some milestones are coming up in the near future, and they have to be met.\"\n - Diversity and team work\n - Nurture staff dedication and expertise while ensuring equal opportunities and diversity: gender-wise, academic and geographic.\n - Cites IEO report: \"In-breeding leads to group-thinking and 'silo mentality' leads to underperformance.\"\n - Asserts diversity will strengthen legitimacy and reinforce effectiveness." }, { "heading": "Specific issues addressed by the candidate", "content": "- Selection process (Number 1)\n - Advocates \"an open, transparent and merit-based selection process\" to allow a large consensus.\n - Emphasizes the Fund \"belongs to no one but its 187 member states.\"\n - States being French and being European \"should be neither an advantage nor a handicap.\"\n- Representing Europe (Number 2)\n - Declares she is \"not here to represent the interest of any given region of the world, but rather the entire membership.\"\n - Reiterates the Managing Director's \"exclusive duty of loyalty to the Fund.\"\n- Conflict of interest (Number 3)\n - Notes that \"Precautionary or disbursing Fund programs are in place in all regions of the world.\"\n - Argues that excluding candidates on the basis of nationality would \"significantly narrow the scope for eligibility for candidacy\" and is \"impossible to 'operationalize'.\"\n - Observes that such a rule would eliminate current candidates even though \"France has no arrangement with the IMF.\"\n - Describes her role in negotiating the economic governance package in the euro-zone and implementing support programs in Greece, Ireland and Portugal; views this as building a strong partnership with the EU.\n - Commits that if elected she will ensure \"full consistency with the Fund’s mission and providing for good stewardship of the Fund’s resources\" when providing support to a euro-area member.\n - Affirms she \"will not shrink from the necessary candor and toughness in my discussions with the European leaders.\"\n - States \"There is no room for benevolence when tough choices must be made\" and emphasizes needed adjustments by Greek authorities to restore fiscal sustainability and competitiveness." }, { "heading": "Personal credentials and commitments", "content": "- Presents herself as:\n - \"a woman, hoping to add to the diversity and balance of this institution.\"\n - \"former head of an international law firm with a dedication to integrity, to the highest moral standards and a belief in participative management.\"\n - \"a Finance minister who has been tested in times of crisis.\"\n - \"a former Chair of the European Union Ecofin Council and of the G20 Finance Meetings, with a widely-recognized track record and acknowledged leadership abilities.\"\n- Pledge if entrusted as MD for \"the next five years\":\n - Build a Fund adapted to a changing world; \"responsive, ready and able to meet all challenges, both foreseeable and unforeseeable.\"\n - Ensure the Fund is \"cooperative, listening and coordinating effectively with all stakeholders, and continuously striving to build consensus.\"\n - Strive for a Fund that is \"legitimate and even-handed, to reflect a changing world.\"\n\nPress Release: Statement by Christine Lagarde to the IMF Executive Board (June 23, 2011).\n\n---\n\n Content in this bundle\n\n- Pr11253apdf (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Pr11253cpdf (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Pr11253rpdf (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n\n---\n\n References\n\n- France and the IMF\n- Greece and the IMF\n- Ireland and the IMF\n- Portugal and the IMF\n- Press Releases\n- Statement by Agustín Carstens to IMF Executive Board\n- Managing Director Selection Process\n- MD Selection\n- PRESS CENTER\n- https://www.imf.org/en/home\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2015/09/14/01/49/pr11253" } ], "bullets": [ "[Markdown version](/en/news/articles/2015/09/14/01/49/pr11253/index.md)", "[Structured JSON version](/en/news/articles/2015/09/14/01/49/pr11253/index.json)", "[Bundle manifest](/en/news/articles/2015/09/14/01/49/pr11253/bundle-manifest.json)", "Published: June 23, 2011", "Press Release No. 11/253", "Date of statement: June 23, 2011", "Audience: IMF Executive Board", "Candidate status: Christine Lagarde, candidate for the position of the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)", "Three key duties of a MD:", "Overarching objective: continuously prove and improve the Fund's legitimacy and effectiveness.", "Assessment of recent history:", "Key principles to lead the Fund:", "Selection process (Number 1)", "Representing Europe (Number 2)", "Conflict of interest (Number 3)", "Presents herself as:", "Pledge if entrusted as MD for \"the next five years\":", "[Pr11253apdf (PDF)](/-/media/websites/imf/imported/external/arabic/np/sec/pr/2011/pr11253apdf.pdf){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}", "[Pr11253cpdf (PDF)](/-/media/websites/imf/imported/external/chinese/np/sec/pr/2011/pr11253cpdf.pdf){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}", "[Pr11253rpdf (PDF)](/-/media/websites/imf/imported/external/russian/np/sec/pr/2011/pr11253rpdf.pdf){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}", "[France and the IMF](http://www.imf.org/external/country/FRA/index.htm)", "[Greece and the IMF](http://www.imf.org/external/country/GRC/index.htm)", "[Ireland and the IMF](http://www.imf.org/external/country/IRL/index.htm)", "[Portugal and the IMF](http://www.imf.org/external/country/PRT/index.htm)", "[Press Releases](https://www.imf.org/en/news/searchnews)", "[Statement by Agustín Carstens to IMF Executive Board](https://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2011/pr11246.htm)", "[Managing Director Selection Process](https://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/facts/mdsp.htm)", "[MD Selection](https://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/faq/mdselection.htm)", "[PRESS CENTER](http://presscenter.imf.org/)", "[https://www.imf.org/en/home](https://www.imf.org/en/home)" ], "related": [ { "title": "Pr11253apdf", "role": "document", "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/-/media/websites/imf/imported/external/arabic/np/sec/pr/2011/pr11253apdf.pdf", "binary": { "path": "/-/media/websites/imf/imported/external/arabic/np/sec/pr/2011/pr11253apdf.pdf", "mime": "application/pdf" } }, { "title": "Pr11253cpdf", "role": "document", "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/-/media/websites/imf/imported/external/chinese/np/sec/pr/2011/pr11253cpdf.pdf", "binary": { "path": "/-/media/websites/imf/imported/external/chinese/np/sec/pr/2011/pr11253cpdf.pdf", "mime": "application/pdf" } }, { "title": "Pr11253rpdf", "role": "document", "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/-/media/websites/imf/imported/external/russian/np/sec/pr/2011/pr11253rpdf.pdf", "binary": { "path": "/-/media/websites/imf/imported/external/russian/np/sec/pr/2011/pr11253rpdf.pdf", "mime": "application/pdf" } } ], "alternates": { "markdown": "/en/news/articles/2015/09/14/01/49/pr11253/index.md", "json": "/en/news/articles/2015/09/14/01/49/pr11253/index.json", "bundleManifest": "/en/news/articles/2015/09/14/01/49/pr11253/bundle-manifest.json" }, "generatedAtUtc": "2026-09-26T18:40:37.383Z" }