The IMF’s Financing Role in Europe During the Global Financial Crisis

Abstract

Abstract Since its establishment in 1945, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has played a key role in ‘giv[ing] confidence to members by making the general resources of the Fund temporarily available to them under adequate safeguards, thus providing them with opportunity to correct maladjustments in their balance of payments without resorting to measures destructive of national or international prosperity’ through its crisis prevention and resolution role. In exercising its mandate, the IMF has had to adapt over time to significant developments in the global monetary and financial systems. Since the Second Amendment of the IMF’s Articles in 1978, subject to certain obligations under the IMF’s Articles, members may freely decide on their exchange rate arrangements merely notifying the IMF of any changes to their own exchange arrangements, which is a departure from the par value system prevalent when the IMF was established.