Brussels, 14/06/2013 (Agence Europe) - People in European circles are starting to query the need for the International Monetary Fund to participate in any future aid plans for the eurozone, should any be required in the future (in addition to the aid programmes for Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Cyprus).
In the long term, “eurozone states must decide aid programmes themselves”, said the director general of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), Klaus Regling, in an interview on Friday 14 June with German newspaper FAZ, in which he is critical of the IMF, saying that it “has made a mockery of the stability and growth pact and claims it is responsible for growth. In doing this, it is not only creating a false contrast, it is also showing above all it does not understand the rules of our single currency bloc”.
On Thursday, the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Durão Barroso, said that, in the future, it should be possible for European institutions to take full responsibility for other aid programmes. He was speaking after a meeting with the president of Portugal, Anibal Cavaco Silva. Barroso said that, for the Portuguese programme, a clear mandate had been given to the EU institutions and it must be respected. It would be counterproductive, he said, to make any adjustments to the troika (European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF), but, in the future, such adjustments would indeed be possible, but would depend on the will of the member states. He believes a rethink of the troika will be needed because the IMF's objectives and vision do not coincide with the objectives and vision of the European Union.
Last week, the IMF strongly criticised the way the Greek aid programme was introduced in 2010 (see EUROPE 10861), saying that there should have been a writedown of Greek debt much earlier than the spring of 2012. In the recent past, it admitted that mistakes had been made in its assessment of the impact of the austerity measures on the Greek economy, but the Commission commented on this that it fundamentally disagreed with the view that the impact had been underestimated. (MB/transl.fl)