Want to see what an IMF managing director’s contract looks like? Here. Put out on Monday to mark Christine Lagarde’s first day in the job. (The public circus starts with her first press conference, which comes on Wednesday.) In case you wondered: $467,940 after tax and an annual after-tax allowance of $83,760 “to maintain … a scale of living appropriate to your position as Managing Director,” for which readers are invited to make their own judgments.
Couple of notable changes from previous versions, including that of Dominique Strauss-Kahn. 1. Tighter rules on ethics, including attendance at internal IMF ethics training (not a course for the half-hearted, by the sound of it) 2. Ban on political activism including attending party meetings.
Doesn’t take a conspiracy theorist to assume the changes are not unconnected with 1. DSK’s affair with an official in 2008, during the investigation of which it was not crystal clear what ethics rules the MD was supposed to abide by; 2. the perpetual speculation that DSK was running for French president.
Lots of chatter about Lagarde’s conflict of interest with the Greece snafu and whom she cares about more, the French banks or the IMF’s shareholders. (Helpfully for her, the first big decision was more or less taken just before she arrived: signing off Greece’s next slug of lending.)
But clearly it’s a different thing to have an MD who has one eye on future voters and one who is going to stay a technocrat for ever, either at the Fund or elsewhere. Someone recently suggested that IMF MDs should sign a pledge to stay out of elected office for the first five years after they leave the Fund. Intriguing idea – and if only I could remember who said it, I’d credit them.
For views and opinions on the European Union from Peter Spiegel, Joshua Chaffin, Alex Barker and Stanley Pignal, follow the 