Eurozone authorities would help a member state in serious economic difficulties before it needed to approach the International Monetary Fund because of a debt-default risk, according to a senior European Union policymaker.

“If a crisis emerges in one eurozone country, there is a solution before visiting the IMF,” Joaquín Almunia, the EU’s monetary affairs commissioner, said on Tuesday. “It’s not clever to tell you in public the solution. But the solution exists.”