Crisis: Greece, Troika's economic plan has failedFMI also says recipe given to country is wrong

Crisis: Greece, Troika's economic plan has failedFMI also says recipe given to country is wrong

(ANSAmed) - ATHENS, FEBRUARY 2 - A little under two years since the signing of the economic policy by the troika - International Monetary Fund, European Union and European Central Bank - that was supposed to save from Greece from bankruptcy, one thing is for sure: the plan has failed before Greece and, as many have claimed from the start, it was mistaken and dangerous for the Greek economy. Antonis Samaras, the leader of the centre-right New Democracy party, which today is part of the government of Lucas Papademos, immediately accused the Socialist government of George Papandreou of accepting the plan without negotiations, asking whether Papandreou had signed it "on the spot".

Today, two years on from the signature, many believe that the plan is leading nowhere, if not to disaster for the economy that it was supposed to save and to the destruction of Greek society.

The recession has exceeded 6%, unemployment has risen to 19.2% and there are now a million people unemployed, while it is almost impossible to find a Greek person today who does not consider the troika to be responsible for the country's ailments, the result of their behaviour and their insistence on a plan in which, of the many measures demanded so far, not one concerns what Greece really needs: development.

All Greeks are now asking themselves what the country's international creditors want to achieve, amid demands for cuts to wages and pensions, staff redundancies and the demolition of every gain made my workers in the last 50 years. Even within the IMF, there is now a conviction that the recipe prescribed to the "Greek patient" is wrong. Michalis Ignatiou, the Washington correspondent for the website Imerisiaonline, an increasing number of figures have made reference for some months to the "wrong medicine" and to a "mistaken plan". During the latest meeting of the FMI's executive council, Ignatiou says, some members of which he claims that he can name, the IMF team's colleagues dealing with Greece were accused of being pushed by the European Commission and by the European Central bank into studying and imposing upon Greece an unbearable programme for the Greek people, which has led to an increase in debt and a recession the likes of which has never been seen in Europe. As if this weren't enough, there has also been focus on the attitude of the troika's representatives, Paul Thomsen in particular, who are accused of lacking in respect for the Greek people.

Vassilis Korkidis, the secretary general of the Greek confederation of traders (ESEE), has spoken in no uncertain terms of the troika's "disregard" for the government, political parties and representatives of workers and entrepreneurs, accusing them of not paying attention to the social situation in which Greek society now finds itself.

The "hard line" followed by representatives of the country's international creditors on the issue of employment, Korkidis says, can be put down to a "vindictive perseverance" or to an "unconnected premise". "The curious insistence on demands for a reduction in the minimum guaranteed private sector wage, which concerns only 13% of workers on low wages, is staggering, while for 87% of private sector workers the cost of work will be further reduced from 15 to 20% in line with deals between companies, the reduction in welfare payments and the three-year wage freeze".

Local political observers say that during his previous visits to Greece, Paul Thomsen was well behaved and always ready to collaborate with the Greek authorities. Recently, though, something has changed and he is behaving "with arrogance and without any desire to collaborate".

This change in behaviour, Ignatiou says, "is down to the fact that he is now accused by many members of the IMF's executive council, and by his direct superior, Reza Moghadam, of not only being responsible or the poor planning of the plan for Greece but of not reacting fast enough to the failure of the economic stability programme that he was drawing up". The same sources, Ignatiou continues, say that Thomsen "wants the complete failure of PSI talks so that the IMF can free itself of the problem posed by Greece, so as to save his career and not be considered responsible for the failure of the Greek problem". (ANSAmed).