{"id":90171,"date":"2015-07-31T10:09:18","date_gmt":"2015-07-31T10:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/2015\/07\/31\/243302\/"},"modified":"2024-12-30T09:26:40","modified_gmt":"2024-12-30T09:26:40","slug":"greece-denied-imf-bailout-package-what-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/2015\/07\/31\/90171\/","title":{"rendered":"Greece denied IMF bailout package: what next?"},"content":{"rendered":"

YEREVAN, July 31. \/ARKA\/.<\/strong> The board of the International Monetary Fund decided Wednesday that Greece was disqualified for any IMF bailout given its high debt levels and poor reform record, vestifinance.ru reports referring to The Financial Times.<\/p>\n

The IMF decided last week that its existing bailout program, which was originally to run until March, needed to be scrapped because it could no longer achieve its stated goal of helping Greece recover to the point where it could return to private debt markets.<\/p>\n

The IMF then forced Athens to request a new IMF program, which requires board approval, necessitating Wednesday\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n

Referring to \u201cstrictly confidential\u201d summary of Wednesday\u2019s board meeting, The Financial Times reports that IMF negotiators will take part in policy discussions to ensure the eurozone\u2019s new bailout \u201cis consistent with what the fund has in mind\u201d.<\/p>\n

But they \u201ccannot reach staff-level agreement at this stage\u201d. The fund will decide whether to take part only after Greece has \u201cagreed on a comprehensive set of reforms\u201d and, crucially, after eurozone bailout lenders have \u201cagreed on debt relief\u201d.<\/p>\n

The determination, presented by IMF staff at a two-hour board meeting on Wednesday, means that while IMF staff will participate in bailout negotiations currently under way in Athens, the fund will not decide whether to agree a new program for months \u2014 potentially into next year.<\/p>\n

That delay could have significant repercussions, particularly in Germany, where officials have long said it would be impossible to win Bundestag approval for the new \u20ac86bn bailout without the IMF on board.<\/p>\n

According to The Financial Times, the IMF\u2019s assessment adds another source of complexity, just as Athens and its bailout monitors begin discussions to try to conclude a deal before a tight August 20 deadline.<\/p>\n

While the creditors harbour misgivings, Alexis Tsipras, Greece\u2019s prime minister, is also facing a mutiny from leftwing members of his Syriza party unhappy with the conditions attached to the bailout.<\/p>\n

That condition could prove a sticking point, since Berlin and other creditor governments have so far strongly resisted any suggestion of forgiving Greece\u2019s debts.<\/p>\n

According to the summary, Germany\u2019s representative to the IMF board said Berlin \u201cwould have preferred the fund .\u2009.\u2009. move in parallel\u201d with the eurozone bailout talks.<\/p>\n

Instead, it now faces the prospect of trying to move an \u20ac86bn bailout through a sceptical Bundestag in a matter of weeks, without the IMF\u2019s imprimatur.<\/p>\n

Some Greek officials suspect the IMF and Wolfgang Sch\u00e4uble, the hardline German finance minister, are determined to scupper a Greek rescue, despite the July agreement to move forward with a third bailout.
\nIn a private teleconference made public this week, Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister, said he feared that his government would pass new rounds of economic reforms only for the IMF to pull the plug on the programme later this year.
\n\u201cAccording to its own rules, the IMF cannot participate in any new bailout. I mean, they\u2019ve already violated their rules twice to do so, but I don\u2019t think they will do it a third time,\u201d Mr Varoufakis is quoted by The Financial Times. \u201cDr Sch\u00e4uble and the IMF have a common interest: they don\u2019t want this deal to go ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senior EU officials have insisted that Christine Lagarde, the IMF managing director, signalled her willingness to participate in a new bailout at the high-stakes summit that agreed the new rescue earlier in July.<\/p>\n

But Greece has become a growing source of rancour within the fund and among its shareholders. People who have spoken with senior IMF officials say Ms Lagarde is facing a unified staff view that the fund\u2019s reputation is on the line and that it cannot agree to a new programme without significant changes. –0–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The board of the International Monetary Fund decided Wednesday that Greece was disqualified for any IMF bailout given its high debt levels and poor reform record, vestifinance.ru reports referring to The Financial Times<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":156856,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","tstyn_error":""},"categories":[12139,9216],"tags":[13121,15917,13848],"class_list":{"0":"post-90171","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy-en","8":"category-news","9":"tag-greece","10":"tag-imf-2","11":"tag-the-financial-times"},"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}