The WSJ reported on Monday that the IMF continues to press recession-battered Greece for more structural reforms, regardless of whether European creditors come to an agreement with Athens over debt relief - another standing demand by the Washington-based Fund.
The WSJ reported on Monday that the IMF continues to press recession-battered Greece for more structural reforms, regardless of whether European creditors come to an agreement with Athens over debt relief - another standing demand by the Washington-based Fund.
"The country’s 'fiscal and structural reforms...pension reforms, tax reforms, are only a down payment',” the WSJ quotes top IMF official Poul Thomsen as saying on the sidelines of the weekend Spring meetings in Washington D.C.
Thomsen, the Fund's European department chief and the original IMF auditor in the first Greek bailout in 2010, was also quoted by the WSJ as saying that pre-crisis employment and income levels in Greece need "deep structural reforms, many of which are not yet on the books ... This is a long-term project," he emphasized.
The Danish economist has long been viewed by Greece's anti-bailout and anti-austerity political factions as the quintessential "bogeyman" in the successive Greek bailouts.
The IMF has demanded specific medium-term debt relief for Greece in order to ensure that its debt is "sustainable", a position that is aligned with the leftist-rightist coalition government in Athens. Additionally, the IMF wants more realistic (lower) fiscal targets for Greece on an annual basis, a view that is also shared by Athens, and in opposition to European creditors.
Conversely, the IMF is a diehard proponent of liberalization in practically all fields and sectors in Greece, along with pension cuts and a wider tax base -- something over which European creditors appear neutral, whereas the mostly leftist Greek government wants to avoid at all costs.