EU, IMF trade barbs over Greek bailout

The European Commission today said it disagreed sharply with an International Monetary Fund report that put much of the blame for the failure of Greece's first debt bailout on Europe, calling some of its findings "plainly wrong".
"We fundamentally disagree" with the IMF's view that Greece's massive debt burden should have been restructured at the outset, instead of waiting until 2012, a Commission spokesman said.
Equally, IMF criticism of efforts to radically reform the Greek economy and put it on the path back to growth were "plainly wrong and unfounded," spokesman Simon O'Connor said.
The IMF helped bail out Greece as part of a 'Troika' with the European Union and the European Central Bank in 2010 and then when that programme failed, again in 2012.

The second rescue, besides much increased aid in exchange for a stinging austerity package, also obliged private sector creditors to take huge losses, thereby slashing Greece's debt burden by more than a 100 billion euros.
The IMF report admitted to significant failures in 2010 but also put much of the blame on its Greek and European partners, saying they were unprepared for the crisis and the harsh choices -- including the debt restructuring -- that may have made the first bailout work better.
The IMF said it overestimated both Greece's debt sustainability and Athens's ability to implement structural reforms while there were coordination problems with Brussels and the ECB on the 110 billion euro (USD 144 billion) bailout.

The Commission was also more focused on European issues than the Greek situation alone, it charged.