Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos again skewered the stance taken by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) vis-à-vis the still pending “Greek program” review — i.e. institutional creditors’ evaluation of whether Athens has so far fulfilled reforms and targets included in the third memorandum.
Tsakalotos, a UK-trained economist before joining ranks with the leftist SYRIZA party in Greece, said his government could not understand why the IMF demands more measures than those envisioned in the third memorandum, “given that economic conditions have dramatically improved since then.”
Speaking before members of the Europarliament’s economic committee on Wednesday, the Greek FinMin also warned that a delay in negotiations threatens the successful completion of the program.
Finally, he defended his government’s decision not to proceed with a new cut in pensions, while claiming that figures cited by IMF Europe department director Poul Thomsen – which put the state’s outlay for pensions at 10 percent of GDP – as misleading.
