BRUSSELS - Europeans are ready to lower their representation at international financial institutions to make more room for China and other emerging economies, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said.
In an interview with the International Herald Tribune ahead of the G20 leaders' summit in Washington, Barroso said European leaders accepted that they were overrepresented at institutions like the International Monetary Fund.
"From the contacts I had and the general spirit of the discussion from leaders and heads of states, there is an openness to accommodate an increased role of the emerging economies," the paper quoted Barroso as saying.
The IHT said he argued China ought to have a greater voice to reflect its economic clout.
The Washington summit will seek to overhaul the role of the IMF, giving it a bigger role in supervising the global financial system. Barroso told the paper that no decisions had been made yet, but that the issue of European representation would have to be examined sooner rather than later.
The United States now have 16.77 percent of the total voting weight at the IMF, Germany has 5.88 percent and Britain and France had 4.86 percent each. China has 3.66 percent.
Barroso said that even though Europeans together had more votes in the IMF than the United States, their influence was smaller because they often spoke as national governments rather than a group.
"We are punching under our weight because we have a fragmented representation," Barroso said.
A more unified European representation at the IMF has been envisaged already during discussions on creating the euro zone a decade ago, but no progress was made so far because governments jealously guard their national seats.
In a separate interview with the Italian La Repubblica daily Barroso said the global financial crisis was not yet over.
"We are still concerned by some problems regarding the financial markets," he said.
Barroso told La Repubblica he hoped the Washington meeting would agree on bank supervision, that transparency and accountability rules had to be shared and that large multinational banks had to accept cross-border supervision.
He also said the financial crisis should not be an excuse to abandon lower CO2 emission targets.
He said EU countries which had budgetary room for manoeuvre like Germany, should make full use of the possibility of a fiscal stimulus.
