EU Backs Wolfowitz As World Bank Chief

The EU gave the nod today to the contentious appointment of Paul Wolfowitz, the US deputy defence secretary, to head the World Bank.

European commissioner Olli Rehn "was satisfied with everything he heard from Mr Wolfowitz concerning free trade and also on poverty reduction and development policy," a spokeswoman told reporters.

The German development minister, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, said: "I expect that he will get the European and German support."

The World Bank board is due to choose a successor to James Wolfensohn tomorrow, and Mr Wolfowitz's appointment as president seems assured after his charm offensive in Brussels.

The prime minister of Luxembourg, Jean-Claude Juncker, made it all but official when he described Mr Wolfowitz as the "incoming president of the World Bank".

After his meeting with senior EU finance and development ministers to discuss his vision for the world's leading development institution, Mr Wolfowitz - a key Bush administration hawk - said he believed deeply in the work of the World Bank and was committed to helping the world's poor.

"Helping people lift themselves out of poverty is truly a noble mission," he said.

Mr Wolfowitz's nomination to the post of World Bank chief by George Bush has caused consternation among non-governmental groups, such as Oxfam, because of Mr Wolfowitz's foreign policy views.

"Oxfam is concerned that Paul Wolfowitz has, in the past, heavily criticised international institutions and has no direct experience of development issues," Oxfam's EU office said in a statement.

"We are calling for a statement clarifying Mr Wolfowitz's position on these critical issues, and we urge governments and the executive directors at the Bank to take up these issues, and the views of developing countries, when considering this nomination."

But there is a mood of resignation among NGOs.

"It's a done deal," said one development expert, who pointed out that the EU was unlikely to create a fuss when it needed US support for their candidate to take over the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

The EU is pushing the former European trade commissioner, Pascal Lamy, for the WTO job, while individual EU states are also seeking backing for their candidates to head the UN Development Programme. Baroness Amos, the leader of the House of Lords has emerged as a contender.

Mr Wolfowitz first met an inner circle of the main European aid donors - Germany, France, Britain, Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark - before a wider session with all 25 EU ministers, diplomats said.

Mr Wolfowitz's willingness to come to Brussels at short notice was seen as a significant goodwill gesture. Mr Juncker said the EU was looking for a greater role in the bank's management as well as policy assurances on the UN's goal of halving world poverty by 2015.

"We have to make sure that the [UN] millennium development goals are the basis on which the incoming president of the World Bank organises his work," Mr Juncker told Reuters. "We have to make sure that Europeans will be represented in a better way on the managing board of the bank."

The Bank's 24-member board meets tomorrow to vote on Mr Wolfowitz's nomination. Germany, Britain and Italy have already backed him.

The US, the bank's largest shareholder, traditionally puts forward a candidate to lead the bank, which the board usually accepts. The top job at the Bank's sister-organisation, the International Monetary Fund, is given to a European as a quid pro quo.