Greece has blamed the International Monetary Fund for a significant delay to the completion of the country’s bailout review.
“All institutions share the blame, but especially the IMF, are to blame for the continued uncertainty prevailing in Greece’s economy,” Franciscos Koutentakis, general secretary of fiscal policy, told reporters on Wednesday.
“It seems that they want to see you being at the edge of a cliff, in order to start negotiating seriously,” he added.
His comments come days after the heads of the bailout institutions left Athens for Easter break, without reaching an agreement on the type and scale of budget cuts and economic overhauls that Athens must undertake to meet the targets set out in its rescue program.
The heads of the institutions are expected to return to Athens on April 2 and aim to reach an agreement by April 11, when finance ministry officials are set to meet.
Without an agreement Greece’s creditors cannot complete a review of its up-to-€86 billion ($96.1 billion) bailout program, which is a prerequisite for the country to receive more financial aid and for the start of politically sensitive talks on debt relief for Greece.
The IMF’s demands for far-reaching fiscal retrenchment have gone beyond what Greece’s European institutions think are necessary.
via Nasdaq
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Alfonso Esparza
trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
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