Ex-IMF official says errors by lenders worsened crisis
Greece’s former representative at the International Monetary Fund, Panayiotis Roumeliotis, appeared before the parliamentary inquiry into the country’s debt and argued that Greece’s lenders have contributed to worsening the Greek crisis through the policies they advocated.
“The mistake made by lenders is that they placed emphasis on the fiscal side and high taxes, which they are continuing to do now,” he said. “This resulted in the recession.”
Roumeliotis was Greece’s envoy to the IMF when the first bailout was signed in 2010 and he claimed at the hearing that there was contact at the time between German and French officials to ensure that there would not be a restructuring of Greece debt as much of it was held by German and French banks.
“They took too long to restructure Greece’s debt,” he said. “We should have fought for this from the start.”
