“Economically speaking, the IMF is no longer necessary for Greece’s stabilization. This is a problem that the EU can resolve on its own,” said Ewald Nowotny, head of Austria’s central bank and an ECB Governing Council member. His comments came after WikiLeaks released documents of what it said was a transcript of a phone conversation between IMF officials expressing frustration at Greece’s slow pace enacting reforms. The document published by the whistle-blowing website quoted the officials as suggesting that the IMG needed a “crisis event” to force Greece into taking more urgent reform measures.
The IMF has yet to officially sign onto Greece’s latest bailout, the third, agreed in July, making its participation conditional on Athens not backtracking on reform promises. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who last year said the IMF bore “criminal responsibility” for Greece’s painful austerity cuts, wrote to IMF chief Christine Lagarde to complain. She replied in a published letter that any speculation “that IMF staff would consider using a credit event as a negotiating tactic is simply nonsense”. On Monday Greece resumed talks on the reforms with mission chiefs from the EU, IMF and the ECB. “Explicit debt relief is unlikely,” Nowotny said. “Greece has already made massive progress.”
