Leadership

IMF prepared to intervene in Greece’s fiscal difficulties

04.02.2010
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said it is prepared to help Greece stabilise its public finances, but that it understands Europe would prefer to settle the matter itself.

The IMF’s Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn (pictured) told France's RTL radio that the IMF had a mission in place providing technical advice at the request of the Greek Government and that if Greece asked the IMF to intervene, it would do so.

“But I totally understand the Europeans who want to try and sort the problem out amongst themselves,” Strauss-Kahn added.

Greece position is ‘serious’
The IMF head acknowledge that Greece’s position was “serious”, but said the Greek Government was aware of the difficulties.

Strauss-Kahn said he had confidence that the Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou would take the necessary measures, although he added that those measures, were “very difficult” ones.

Infringement proceedings
Strauss-Kahn’s comments came on the day after the European Commission gave a cautious backing to Greece’s plan to slash its budget deficit to under 3pc of GDP by 2012.

The Commission also announced yesterday that it was instigating infringement proceedings against the Mediterranean country for incorrectly reporting its budgetary statistics.

The proceedings will now require the Greek Government to take all necessary steps to ensure that the systemic failures and weaknesses identified in a recent Commission report are corrected.

The Commission’s report condemned Greece for falsifying economic data about its public finances and allowing political interference to intervene in the collection of reliable statistical data.