Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos criticized the International Monetary Fund for not telling the truth on Greece’s bailout program and dismissed the prospect of further austerity measures past 2018.
Tsakalotos spoke to The Guardian after the IMF criticized the country’s bailout program saying that it was Greece that chose high primary surpluses despite the Fund’s suggestion that this would be contrary to growth prospects. The Greek position is that the Fund is asking for Athens to implement more austerity.
The IMF proposed a wider tax base, a lower tax-free ceiling and pension cuts for those who get high pensions.
“The Oxford philosopher J L Austen was particularly critical of forms of argument that relied on the following technique: there’s the bit where you say it, and then there’s the bit where you take it back. The IMF is particularly open to this criticism,” Tsakalotos told the Guardian.
“In effect it is arguing for Greek pensioners and poorer wage earners to make further economies, while it economizes on the truth.”
Tsakalotos argued that 45 percent of Greek pensioners receive less than 665 euros and four million Greek people receive 665 euros per month, at the edge of the poverty line. Thereby, he argued, there cannot be further cuts.
Moreover, Tsakalotos denied that the Greek government agreed to meet European creditors’ demand for high primary surpluses (3.5 percent of GDP) after the bailout program ends in August 2018.
“I laid out the position of the Greek government that high primary surpluses for an economy like Greece and what it has gone through during the crisis make no economic or political sense,” Tsakalotos told the Guardian.
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