BRASILIA, Brazil — Europe’s debt crisis is giving Brazil an opportunity to show its growing economic power.

The South American nation endured decades of lectures from the developed world about its spendthrift ways. But it now has one of the world’s fastest growing economies.

Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega said yesterday the country is ready to help the International Monetary Fund (IMF) tackle the economic crisis affecting Greece, Italy and other European Union countries.

But he told reporters that those countries need to take more decisive action to solve the problems.

“Brazil and other countries, including the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are ready to strengthen the IMF,” Mantega said. “But this depends on them doing the tasks they set out to do.”

Among the tasks mentioned by Mantega are the creation of a European Fund to deal with the debt crisis and greater use of the European Central Bank.

Mantega said the funds Brazil could provide in the future could be used not only to help European nations but also emerging economies that did not have large hard currency reserves.

Mantega did not mention any numbers and he denied reports that Brazil had offered the IMF a US$10 billion credit line during the recent G20 meeting in Cannes.

Alexandre Barros, of the Early Warning political risk group said Brazil’s offer to help the IMF is a sign of the country’s growing clout on the international scene.

In return, he said, Brazil will want a bigger role in the IMF and other multilateral institutions.

Since the global financial crisis began in 2008, Mantega and other leaders from developing nations have fought for reforms in the IMF, World Bank and other multilateral institutions that would take into account the growth of emerging nations such as Brazil, China and India.