US- EU Must be Creative, Aggressive in Crisis Response 

(MENAFN - Qatar News Agency) US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Saturday acknowledged Europe's "important action" recently to address the region's debt crisis.

"The success of the next phase of the crisis response will hinge on Europe's willingness and ability, together with the European Central Bank, to apply its tools and processes creatively, flexibly and aggressively to support countries as they implement reforms and stay ahead of markets," he said in a statement to the International Monetary Fund's policy steering committee, during the IMF-World Bank spring meetings in Washington.

The debt-ridden eurozone expanded its own bailout fund on March 30 to more than 1 trillion dollars, while the ECB has injected 1 trillion dollars in recent months into the region's banks to spur continued lending even as they repair their balance sheets, the German Press Agency dpa reported.

A fiscal pact among 25 of the EU's 27 countries is intended to enforce budget discipline and prevent future debt crises.

In the announcement during the Washington meetings of 430 billion dollars in lines of credit from more than 20 IMF member countries, the United States - the world's largest economy and the IMF's biggest investor - was conspicuously absent.

"We welcome the pledges by several International Monetary Fund members to provide bilateral loans to the Fund," Geithner said.

The new resources will expand the international crisis lender's available capacity - what IMF chief Christine Lagarde has called a "global firewall" - to more than 800 billion dollars. The IMF has participated since 2010 in bailouts of eurozone members Greece, Portugal and Ireland.

Geithner said Saturday that the IMF has "substantial capacity" to respond to the eurozone crisis and noted that the US has contributed to financial market stability through central bank swap lines with the ECB.