IMF 'indispensable' part of rescue programs: ECB's Weidmann

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund is a key part of bailout programs extended to over-indebted euro zone countries, Jens Weidmann, a member of the European Central Bank's governing council said on Tuesday.

"The IMF has become an indispensable part of these programs," Weidmann said in introductory remarks before a speech by the IMF's managing director, Christine Lagarde, in Frankfurt.

Weidmann's remarks emphasize the ECB's insistence on keeping the Fund in a group of three institutions responsible for Greece's new rescue program, which is currently being negotiated.

At the weekend, after Internet site Wikileaks published an apparent transcript of an IMF conference call, Lagarde denied that IMF staff might threaten to pull out of the Greek bailout as a tactic to force more European debt relief for Greece.

(Reporting by Francesco Canepa; Editing by Catherine Evans)

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