IMF retracts idea for radical EU intervention
BRUSSELS - In a dramatic turnaround, a senior official for the International Monetary Fund is retracting an earlier statement that the IMF could intervene in bond markets to support struggling Italy and Spain.
Antonio Borges said that "The fund can only lend its resources to countries, and cannot use these resources to intervene in bond markets directly."
He said that "any alternative lending modalities to what we do now would require a different legal structure" for the IMF and added that such changes had not been discussed with the fund's members.
Earlier Wednesday, Borges had said at a news conference in Brussels that the IMF could possibly invest alongside the eurozone's bailout fund to help Italy and Spain.