Man remanded for throwing coins at IMF’s Poul Thomsen
A man was remanded in custody in central Athens on Tuesday after hurling several coins at the International Monetary Fund’s representative overseeing the Greek bailout program, Poul Thomsen, as he arrived at the Finance Ministry on Syntagma Square.
None of the coins thrown by the disgruntled Greek hit the IMF inspector, who managed to duck into the Finance Ministry before suffering any injury.
Thomsen arrived in Athens on Tuesday with his counterparts from the European Commission, Matthias Morse, and the European Central Bank, Klaus Masuch, where they will meet with Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras and other leading ministers to discuss the progress of reforms, which will determine the disbursement of the next tranche of bailout funding, a sum of 1 billion euros.
Talks with Stournaras are expected to focus on Greece’s fiscal gap as well as a series of prior actions that Athens has promised creditors in a bid to secure further rescue funding including an overhaul of two state defense firms, EAS and ELVO.
Labor Minister Yiannis Vroutsis is scheduled to meet the envoys at 4 p.m. to discuss the country’s problematic social security funds whose deficits have contributed to the fiscal gap.
