German Chancellor Angela Merkel said today that the establishment of a "European Monetary Fund" would not weaken the International Monetary Fund (IMF), after a meeting with the French prime minister in Berlin, according to dpa. "The IMF surely won't mind if one currency, the euro, solves its problems internally, as many other currencies do," Merkel said. "We can't do that sufficiently today, and it would be wrong if we didn't learn our lessons from that," the chancellor added, after talks with Francois Fillon. Merkel stressed that a European Monetary Fund could only ever be a measure of last resort, following the use of sanctions, to prevent the recurrence of the type of problems affecting Greece. Such a fund - which could only be established after making changes to existing EU treaties - could intervene if a state was threatened with insolvency, the chancellor added. Earlier, Fillon also called for strong economic governance within the European Union (EU). The French premier said the economic crisis had demonstrated the importance of adapting control mechanisms within the 16-country eurozone, during a talk at the Humboldt University in Berlin. "The appropriate measures need to be at our disposal, so we can react in the case of economic or financial difficulties of a eurozone member state," Fillon said. The prime minister said a European Monetary Fund could potentially "complete the measures available for the eurozone and its members to react to financial tensions that could threaten the currency's stability." The French premier said the crisis in Greece had hit "the heart of the pact that unites us, which is our common currency." Fillon said it was out of the question for Greece to leave the eurozone, adding that the other member states had a duty to show solidarity.
