In the aftermath of the surprise cut in rates by the US Federal Reserve, Congress voted an emergency envelope of $ 8.3 billion on Wednesday to support the economy against the coronavirus. The IMF encourages the international community to do "more rather than not doing enough". For their part, Europeans prefer to wait.
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At the end of a telephone meeting, the finance ministers of the Twenty-Seven simply declared themselves "ready to take new measures", without revealing any concrete action. Bruno Le Maire, who called for a budgetary response, will have to be content with intentions. "We will spare no effort to protect our economies from greater consequences" than those already noted, assured Mario Centeno, Portuguese president of the Eurogroup.
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The Standard and Poor's agency halved its growth forecast for the euro zone at 0.5% for the year (0.7% for France). The wait-and-see attitude of the Twenty-Seven amounts to returning the ball to the camp of the European Central Bank, which meets on March 12. During a telephone exchange to assess the Fed's decision on Tuesday, the major European financiers chose not to follow suit immediately. Unlike the Bank of Canada, which in turn lowered its rate by 0.5 points, for the first time since 2015.
The 189 IMF member countries, a third of which are affected by the coronavirus, have promised to provide "all the necessary support" to the most fragile among them. The Fund has a reserve of $ 10 billion which can be lent at zero rate. According to its CEO, Kristalina Georgieva, global growth will be lower in 2020 than last year (2.9%).