Paris Club
Categories: International
Depending on the circles you run in, the Paris Club could be either a Francophile tea party, or a group of lender-nations who work together to find ways for borrower-nations to pay them back when they don’t. Yep: Breton stripes and scones, or an unofficial debt collector club, take your pick.
As you could guess, the lender-nations are on the wealthier end of the spectrum. The U.S., Western Europe, the U.K., Scandinavian countries, and Japan...19 in total.
The one thing the Paris Club really wants you to know is that they’re super unofficial...a “non-institution,” if you will. They have meetings, but they’re more about problem-solving how to get their money back than policy-making to get their money back.
Meetings happen ten times a year in Paris. While the lender-nations are the ones in the meeting, they allow “observers” to come and watch them. The IMF, the World Bank, OECD, and other groups that dabble in international debt and development, all come and watch.
