Presentation

After the Argentine President Juan Domingo Peron was overthrown by a military coup in 1955, the new regime was eager to re-establish the good-will of the creditors. They quickly requested membership to the IMF and the World Bank. This meant regularising their debt situation and meeting with their principal creditor countries. This meeting was held on 16 May 1956 in Paris at the invitation of the French Minister of the Economy and was the founding act of the ’Paris Club’.
Sixty years later, (...)

Paris, AFP (France Press Agency) - In a communiqué Monday, the Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt (CADTM) called for the “absolute suppression” of the Paris Club, a “true institutional anomaly” that celebrates its fiftieth birthday on Tuesday, “to finally achieve a total cancellation of the Southern countries’ debt”.
“A true institutional anomaly, the Paris Club has neither a legal existence nor status. It is a ‘non institution’ at the heart of international financial relations,” (...)