Europe unlikely to move soon on IMF board seats-sources

BRUSSELS, Sept 2 (Reuters) - European Union finance ministers are unlikely to decide anytime soon to cut the number of European seats at the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund, as sought by the United States, EU sources said.

The United States, long frustrated at Europe's refusal to share more IMF power with emerging economies, took unprecedented action last month to block plans that would have maintained Europe's long-running dominance over the 24-member board.

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Germany, France and Britain have their own seats on the board, while EU members Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Denmark represent groups of countries. Switzerland, although not part of the EU, also has a chair.

EU finance ministers will discuss the U.S. move at their next meeting on Tuesday, but a senior euro zone source involved in the preparation of the meeting, asked what result could be expected said:

"Nothing. I expect that the single European chair will be identified as a very long-term possible solution," the official said.

"Nobody will give up their seat without a tremendous amount of pressure," the source said, but noted such pressure was starting to build.

The official said that in the end, smaller European countries were more likely to lose their seat than the bigger ones.

"It is obvious what will happen. It is always the question of the weakest link -- it is unlikely that it will be Germany that will lose its seat, so by backwards induction you can figure out who the weakest link is and who the second weakest link is," the source said.

"So it is quite obvious what will happen, but the first European position is to say 'the number of seats that we have is fully deserved'," the source said.

European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said on Thursday Europe needed to speak with a united voice to ensure it retains its influence in the IMF.

The current Europe-U.S. domination of the Washington-based fund is a reflection of its post-World War II set-up but the order is now being challenged by the rise of China and other emerging economy powerhouses.

The board is one of the global lender's main decision-making bodies. It has approved billions of dollars in emergency loans for countries hit by the global financial crisis and oversees the way the Fund is run.

A second source involved in the preparation of the EU finance ministers' meeting said the Europeans would all have to do something about the size of Europe's representation but there was no agreement at this stage who should do what and when.

"There are dozens of options and there is not enough time to come to an agreement with other IMF members before the Oct 8-10 annual meetings, so we can agree to some changes at the next (board) election in 2012," the source said.

A third euro zone source involved in the preparations said one option was to rotate the seats in some of the groups of countries now chaired by the Europeans.

"There is some talk about rotation in some constituencies which are chaired by Europeans," the third source said.

"One option is to do nothing, the other is to have a single euro chair or EU chair, and then there is rotating but there are no details on how, who and how often," the third source said.

(Reporting by Jan Strupczewski, editing by Ron Askew)