The EU distanced itself from comments made by the IMF that there had been "notable failures" in the Greek bailout.
The European Commission “fundamentally” disagrees with several of the findings published by the IMF, including that Greece’s debt should have been restructured early on and that too little was done to identify growth-enhancing reforms, spokesman Simon O’Connor said.
“This is plainly wrong and unfounded”, he said in Brussels. “In fact, the commission has been a major driving force behind the strong focus of the (bailout) programme on structural reforms.” The European Union’s executive works with the IMF and the European Central Bank to monitor and help enforce eurozone bailouts as part of the often-reviled troika.
The commission will now conduct its own review of the cooperation with troika partners, O’Connor said. Greece “has been a learning process”, he said. “Of course we can go back and assess what in an ideal world might have been done differently, but the circumstances were what they were and I think [the commission and its partners] did their very best in what was an unprecedented situation, an extremely difficult one.”
O’Connor noted that Greece in the end managed to stay in the eurozone despite intense speculation to the contrary, and that “today the reform programme is on track and there are growing signs of stabilisation and increasing confidence in Greece". Finance Minister Giannis Stournaras had earlier welcomed the IMF report, describing it as “objective". The report “will allow the chance to recognize the errors which have been made so that they are not repeated", he said.
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