Alexis Tsipras: IMF should stay out of Greek bailout

Greek prime minister called IMF’s involvement ‘unconstructive.’

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras would prefer that Greece’s third bailout program remain in European hands only.

“We think that after six years of managing in extraordinary crisis, Europe now has the institutional capacity to deal successfully with intra-European issues,” Tsipras told the Financial Times in Monday’s edition.

The Greek prime minister indicated he wants to keep the International Monetary Fund out of the €85 billion bailout deal that was struck between eurozone countries and Greece over the summer. He said he was “puzzled by the unconstructive attitude of the [International Monetary] Fund on fiscal and financial issues.”

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In past weeks, the Greek government has passed fiscal and structural reform bills as well as the 2016 budget. But pension reforms — a sensitive issue for the Greek government — are still on the table and the IMF has stressed the need for pension cuts in the past.

“We’ve been five years in a program. It’s hard for an EU country to have lost its sovereignty for such a long time. To regain it and to get out from the control of the troika [the European Commission, European Central Bank, and IMF], we have to implement the [bailout] agreement. It’s hard but it’s better than any other choice,” Tsipras said.

It is the second time this month the Greek prime minister has criticized the IMF’s involvement in Greek debt funding, but Eurogroup officials have pushed back on Tsipras’ wish to continue without the fund.

The IMF’s board is expected to decide early next year whether it will be amongst the partners supporting Greece in the bailout program. Countries including Germany have called on the IMF to join, but the fund has been hesitant to support the third bailout deal because of concerns that Greece’s public debt has become unsustainable.

Greece’s creditors — known as the troika — include the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the IMF. Tsipras rallied against the control of this so-called troika on the country’s finances in his first election campaign in January 2015. He was re-elected last September based on the deal his government struck with European countries to fix Greece’s financing.