The new head of the IMF faces challenges as work begins (AFP)

WASHINGTON (AFP) - new Director of the Monetary Fund General International, Christine Lagarde, will debut under intense pressure this week as the financial difficulties of the Greece to pose a challenge urgent.

The French Executive should disembark at Washington Monday of the celebration of the feast of the independence of the United States. It will officially start work on Tuesday morning and held a Wednesday Press Conference.

A "expected agenda for the work occupied," said the IMF in its internal online magazine, while he insisted on one of the elements of pressing most of Lagarde includes the "difficult policy choices necessary to contribute to the global recovery (and) to address the crisis of the euro area".

"The world economy is buffeted by uncertainty in Europe, uprisings in the Middle East, signs of overheating in some emerging market economies to rapid growth and rising prices of raw materials that pose a particular challenge for low-income countries," added the publication.

But the Greek economic crisis overshadows all other priorities.

In the immediate future, the Greece is supposed to receive 12 billion euros ($17.4 billion) of the euro zone and the IMF on July 15 after Ministers approved the fifth tranche of financial ($160 billion) rescue aid EUR 110 billion last year.

This cycle is based on the IMF includes 3.3 billion euros ($4.7 billion), according to the schedule of payments set out in May 2010.

A strategy in the long term, the IMF must find a way to finance a country which, in all likelihood, be unable to return to the markets for loans in the long term in 2012, as expected.

In the Greek crisis, transitions of Lagarde in the area of the IMF of its functions in the eurozone as former Finance Minister of the France.

Obtaining employment, she promised that she would take the countries of the euro area to the same standards as the other Member States.

"The IMF is for anyone." It belongs to the 187 members of the Fund, and the management of the Fund does not belong to a particular nation or region. We can? t effectively represent the world? s economic balance if some economies are under-represented, "said."

LaGarde has stated that the Greeks must make adjustments difficult but necessary to restore viability in the sector of public finance and the competitiveness of their countries.

"It is a country." fate of s, for his safety. "And I think that at this time, we must ignore the small and large political differences for the service of the country", she said.

In addition, she said that she wanted to ensure continuity of his predecessor, Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

But the two do step come from the same school of thought. Strauss-Kahn is a Social Democrat Lagarde is a "moderate".

Laureate Paul Krugman the 2008 Nobel Prize Economist, said that the "serious, responsible and sensible" Lagarde was still a mystery.

"In Strauss-Kahn, the IMF was staking a position less dogmatic, more open to the major international organizations.". That? s saying too much, but it is much better that the madmen in authority to the OECD or the bis, "Krugman wrote on his blog."

"Then, the question is, the IMF will become more reasonable in the context of Lagarde?" For the sake of the world economy, let? s hope not. »