Paris Club comes under attack
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Paris Club comes under attack

For years the secretive Paris Club of sovereign creditors has ruled over debt workouts without comment or criticism. It dictated terms to the private sector and resisted, where possible, the writing off of debts to poorer nations. But that was in the days when official flows were the majority and private debt was in the hands of the banks. Now bondholders are outraged that the Paris Club is refusing to adapt its approach to the new economic environment, one in which private finance calls the shots. With the Paris Club refusing to budge on any of the major issues, the stage is set for a protracted battle. Brian Caplen reports

By Brian Caplen French civil servants use old-fashioned methods to persuade Paris Club creditors and debtors to reach agreement: duress and subterfuge. Holed up in the vast post-modernist complex that houses the French treasury, participants are kept working - or waiting - throughout the day and night, with little sleep or food, until one side cracks.

The creditors sit in a windowless conference hall while the debtors are crammed into a tiny meeting room downstairs. OVers and counter-oVers are relayed between the parties by treasury officials who, to quote one delegate, "control the information Flow to maximum advantage". Their aim is to get deals done rapidly, on terms agreeable to the creditors and that accord with French or G7 foreign policy.

This is easy to achieve since Paris Club rules are not written down but are kept inside the heads of the treasury officials. A shrewd negotiator will quote the precedent of, say, Guinea in 1995 on Naples terms, to push an agreement forward, knowing that few if any delegates will have the expertise to challenge it. Even the order in which creditors are called on to speak may have been calculated by the chair to encourage a certain outcome.

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