Ex-IMF chief Strauss-Kahn believes Brexit will benefit everyone

The EU will be better off without the UK, and the UK will be better off without the EU, according to IMF’s former chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a controversial figure who has been involved in several financial and sexual scandals. EURACTIV’s partner Ouest-France reports.

The former IMF chief and a controversial figure in French politics, Strauss-Kahn (DSK), considers himself a Brexiteer.

This is what he told the newspaper Journal de Dimanche at the 12th World Policy Conference in Marrakesh, which took place on Saturday (12 October).

During the conference, Strauss-Kahn spoke highly of the UK’s withdrawal agreement with the EU, widely known as Brexit. He found it “very good that the English are going their way”.

“Much of the difficulty of building Europe over the past forty years is linked to our British friends,” he said.

The Brits “never wanted to play the game,” he added.

Strengthening a political Europe

What he wants is not the end of the EU as he wants it, but rather the strengthening of its political integration. The IMF’s former managing director is more concerned about Europe’s place in the world.

And according to him, the continent is getting weaker and weaker.

“The great idea behind Europe, when it was established, was precisely to become, through its union, one of the players in this multipolar world,” he said.

“What I see today makes me a little desperate, especially as I have devoted a large part of my life to this work. I fear that Europe today is moving into the second division,” he added.