LONDON (Reuters) - The European Union should do more to support economies in central and eastern Europe, leading a coordinated global effort to help the region, World Bank President Robert Zoellick was quoted as saying.
"It's got to have support from the European governments," he said in an interview published in Thursday's edition of the Financial Times. "It's 20 years after Europe was united in 1989 - what a tragedy if you allow Europe to split again."
The euro fell to its lowest level in three months on Wednesday and shares in Europe's banks have been hurt further in recent days, undermined by fears that contagion from a sharp economic slowdown in emerging Europe could spread westwards.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Wednesday called for international action to prevent too much damage to trade and jobs as hard-pressed western banks pull out of eastern Europe to focus on their core home markets.
Zoellick said the World Bank was trying to work with the International Monetary Fund and other multilateral institutions to help the region but needed more backing from Brussels, the FT reported.
"There is a disconnect between some of the rhetoric of leaders calling for global this and global that and their own policies," he was quoted as saying.
He also said that "one shoe that hasn't dropped" yet in terms of fresh blows to the global economy was a sudden currency crisis in an important country.
Meanwhile IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn repeated a warning that a second wave of countries may come knocking on his door for support in the near future.
"I'm afraid that there is a possibility that in the coming weeks and months another couple, maybe more than that, countries will need some support," he told the BBC in an interview.
Strauss-Kahn said emerging economies in particular were likely to need IMF help because capital flows are reversing as western banks and private investors repatriate funds.
He said the fund had enough money to deal with countries currently needing its help but that more would be needed should there be a second wave of applicants.
"We need stronger multilateral institutions ... so that the early warning system we are trying to rebuild, and will be making more effective, will be listened to by governments," he said, adding he was confident the G20 would hand the IMF the funds and mandate it needs at a summit in London in April.
"I really think that the G20 will give the IMF the resources and also ask the IMF questions to deal with which will really broaden our scope," Strauss-Kahn said.
Strauss-Kahn said he did not believe Gordon Brown wanted to succeed him as head of the IMF: "I don't think he has this kind of ambition," he told the BBC's Newsnight programme.
(Reporting by Paul Hoskins; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)
