Brussels, 19/11/2010 (Agence Europe) - In a stopover in Frankfurt-am-Main on Friday 19 November, the director of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, criticised the lack of EU vision on budget policy, economic balance within the EU and the labour market, along with the slow progress in EU cooperation to reform banking. On 18 November, the president of the ECB, Jean-Claude Trichet, expressed “deep concern” about current work to reform economic governance in the EU. He had already warned about the feeble level of automatic penalties to be applied when a eurozone country breaks the revised Stability and Growth Pact rules, if the ideas set out at the European Council win the day when it comes to reforming the way economic governance operates in Europe (see EUROPE 10250). He also criticised the European Council's desire to introduce a permanent eurozone sovereign debt crisis management system that would automatically involve the private sector. The president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, has corrected earlier comments that 2010 was a year in which the “eurozone had survived” (see EUROPE 10257): “I bring a positive message, even if it is not politically correct. I hope that this message will come through, rather than a reference to the survival crisis, which was wrongly interpreted as referring to the present situation.” (M.B./transl.fl)