IMF's 'never again' experience in Greece may get worse

[Liberals Thwarted Again]

For the International Monetary Fund, five years of playing
junior partner in European bailouts for Greece has been a "never
again" experience, and the worst may be yet to come.

The global lender has lent far more to Athens than to any other
borrower, contributing nearly one-third of the total 240 billion
euros, with the rest coming from euro zone governments and the
bloc's rescue fund.

But it has sat uncomfortably in the side-car of the Greek
rescue. Called in by EU paymaster Germany to try to keep the
European institutions and the Greeks honest, the Washington-
based IMF has never had control of the programme.

Now Greece may be about to become the first European nation to
default on the IMF, putting it in exclusive company with
Zimbabwe and Argentina.

Athens postponed a 300 million euro instalment due last week and
bundled it with others due this month into a single 1.6 billion
euro payment due to the IMF at the end of June.

Greece has said it can only pay if it gets new funds from
creditors or is allowed to sell more short-term debt to Greek
banks, which in turn hinges on a stalled cash-for-reform deal.

Critics say the IMF has damaged its credibility by going along
with political fudges to keep Greece in the euro zone rather
than insisting on write-offs, first by private creditors and now
by European governments, to make its debt sustainable.

"One of the most important lessons for the IMF from the Greek
programme should be that a multilateral institution should not
institutionalise special interests of a subset of its
membership," said Ousmene Mandeng, a former IMF official who is
now an economics adviser.

"The interest of the IMF is not necessarily aligned with the
EU/ECB," he said.

http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/06/10/eurozone-greece-imf-
idINKBN0OQ2E620150610