LONDON (Thomson Financial) - UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling said Europe should no longer have the right to appoint the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, according to a report in The Guardian.
Traditionally Europe has decided who heads the IMF while the US has selected the president of the World Bank. The US used the traditional custom last month to replace Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank with president George Bush's former trade representative Robert Zoellick.
However Darling told the newspaper that the surprise resignation of current IMF managing director Rodrigo de Rato should be used to open up the appointment process.
"I don't think Europe can simply say 'that position is ours and we are not prepared to discuss it with anyone else'", Darling is quoted as saying.
"There is a view that it is our (Europe's) turn. Just because it has always been so in the past, doesn't mean it will always be so in the future," he added.
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