Wolfowitz seems set for World Bank job [Archives:2005/827/Business & Economy]
WASHINGTON, March 21 (Reuters) – Paul Wolfowitz's candidacy to head the World Bank seemed set for approval at the end of the month without a major battle, after he won endorsements from Germany and Canada and other members appeared likely to follow.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's support on Monday for the U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary, one of the main architects of the war in Iraq, was the first by a leader of a major European country and came after a wary response in Europe to President George W. Bush's controversial choice.
The European Union is holding a summit in Brussels on Tuesday, which will discuss Wolfowitz's nomination to become president of the bank.
France, which like Germany strongly opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, was also expected to back Wolfowitz for the job, European bank sources and diplomats told Reuters.
“The U.S. president phoned me up to say what he intended and I told him Germany would not stand in his way,” Schroeder told German television. “I have the impression we could be positively surprised.”
In Ottawa, a finance department spokesman said Canada welcomed Wolfowitz's nomination, describing him as “a very serious and credible candidate.”
European diplomats said there was a feeling that shareholders wanted to “avoid a crisis and a period of uncertainty at the World Bank.”
Still, Europeans would seek reassurances from Wolfowitz when they interviewed him, the diplomats said. They said it was important that Wolfowitz understood that he is not Bush's ambassador to the World Bank.
Poorest Nations
Wolfowitz was preparing to meet World Bank members this week, including those from Europe and Africa, to discuss his vision for the bank, which provides about $20 billion a year in aid to the world's poorest nations.
As president of the 184-member bank, Wolfowitz will have to report to the bank's 24-member board, which will vote on his nomination on March 31.
Shareholders from Asia and the Pacific including Japan, China, New Zealand, Australia and South Korea, met Wolfowitz on Friday.
Officials at the meeting said Wolfowitz had “shown keen interest” in their views.
Foreign governments and non-profit advocates of poverty reduction fear that Wolfowitz will impose U.S. foreign policy on the bank, which wants to be seen as neutral.
Meanwhile, the bank's Staff Association told employees in an internal email obtained by Reuters that it had met current president James Wolfensohn and the head of the board to express staff concerns about Wolfowitz's nomination.
The association, which acts on behalf of the bank's 10,000 staff, said it had launched a “confidential feedback channel” for staff to comment on Wolfowitz's nomination, which would be submitted to board directors.
In an interview with Reuters on Friday, Wolfowitz described his critics as “people who don't know me” and said when they do “get to know me they will realize fairly quickly that I'm about a lot more than military issues, about a lot more than just the Iraq war and that a good deal that has been written about me is an inaccurate caricature.”
Ian Vasquez, an analyst at the Washington-based Cato Institute, said Europeans and other countries had become resigned to Wolfowitz becoming the next World Bank president.
“This may be an implicit understanding that Wolfowitz will support increases in foreign aid (to the World Bank) of the kind that some of the European countries have been calling for,” he said.
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