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Brussels (Reuters) - European Union finance ministers agreed on Wednesday to increase the bloc’s contribution to IMF funds to 125 billion euros ($178 billion) from 75 billion pledged in March.

The rise is a consequence of leaders from the Group of 20 industrial and emerging countries tripling, rather than doubling as initially expected, the amount of International Monetary Fund resources to $750 billion at their summit in April.

“There is agreement that 125 billion is a position that we have a common view on from Europe,” Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg told a news conference. His country holds the EU’s rotating presidency in the second half of 2009.

“We have to put our money where our mouth is and obviously going to London and going to Pittsburgh we will have to commit to increasing our support,” he added, referring to respective meetings of G20 finance ministers and leaders later this month.

He said burden-sharing among the 27-country EU still needed to be discussed.

Separately, French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde rebuffed calls for the EU to be represented by a single seat at the IMF, partly to allow emerging economies such as China and India to have more clout at the institution.

“France … does not want for all the Europeans to be represented by a single seat,” she told a news conference.

“European countries represent around 33 percent of (global) GDP and around 33 percent of the (IMF) financing. We can ask whether some countries are overrepresented and others are underrepresented as a proportion in world GDP,” she added.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive, has called for the bloc to have a single representation at international bodies, but its finance ministers disagreed on the plan at a meeting in July.

However, they agreed to speak with one voice at such fora.

The IMF needs more resources to help a number of countries handle the worst economic crisis since World War Two.

EU sources told Reuters this week that the United States and Japan would each provide $100 billion for the IMF.

In a letter released on Monday, Lagarde and her German counterpart said they were ready to increase by two thirds their countries’ contributions to the IMF’s crisis-fighting war chest.

This would boost Germany’s contribution to the IMF New Arrangements to Borrow to some 25 billion euros and France’s to 18.45 billion euros, reflecting their economic weight.

Britain said on Monday it was ready to provide $11 billion in extra funds to the IMF, taking its total contribution to $26 billion.