The IMF may assume the role of a “technical adviser” in any Greek program – rather than as a lender – given that margins for resolving differences between the Fund and European creditors over Greek relief remain unresolved, the country’s representative to the Washington D.C.-based organization said.
The same view was more-or-less expressed by Cabinet minister Dimitris Vitsas, who holds the migration policy portfolio.
According IMF country representative Michalis Psalidopoulos, there is no issue of an extension of the current Greek bailout past Aug. 20, 2018. Speaking to Greece’s state-run news agency, Psalidopoulos, a professor of economic theory history in Athens before being appointed to the Fund as Greece’s representative in 2015, also said an IMF report on the recession–battered Greek economy and on the sustainability of its external debt is pending.
In a decidedly more optimistic view of the thrice bailed-out country's economic prospects, compared to what the Fund’s chief economists usually predict, the Greek academic said he believes the IMF’s improved forecasts of Greece’s macro-economic figures, in tandem with debt relief measures – solely by institutional European creditors – will persuade the Fund to determine that the country's debt is sustainable in the medium term.
