The mushroom principle. At a meeting in Brussels yesterday a range of European Executive Directors to the World Bank expressed their frustration at the process of selecting the next Bank president. One of them told me that they "were in the blue". Another that this website is consistently much more up to date on the issue than they are sitting in Washington at bi-weekly board meetings.

They all expressed frustration that the US government's claims in early January that there would be an open and consultative process have amounted to nothing.

The European EDs argued that this year's selection process is woefully untransparent and disorganised compared to that for the IMF last year (which was wrapped up within two months).

In short the European representatives to the Bank felt they were being completely sidelined. As a former Swiss ED memorably complained in the Financial Times a few years ago they are suffering from application of the mushroom principle: "being kept in the dark and fed on sh*t".

Alex Wilks ~ March 15, 2005

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