What is the IMF doing in this Greek mess?

The Greek situation, in all its dimensions, has become more grotesque with every passing day, and more specifically in the last year, by the very negative and preposterous role the International Monetary Fund plays in this.

An observer from Mars landing on Earth this week would ask in astonishment how Europeans had allowed three non-European economists working for an institution dominated by the US, we have no idea who appointed them, to decide the fate of the euro!?!

Because this is the way things stand: since 2010 when the IMF was allowed to participate in the Greek debt negotiations, on the grounds that they were one of its creditors, all the more so since we have resigned ourselves to the belief that they could provide credible economic forecasts better than the European Commission’s forecasts, the debate on Greece’s presence in the eurozone has slowly shifted and simply beggars belief.

First, the Eurogroup political leaders have allowed the IMF to creep in among the negotiators of all Greek debt, as up until this point the negotiators were only coming from the European Commission and the European Central Bank.

Second, the same European leaders, instead of assuming their political responsibilities, said loud and clear that they would not accept any compromise unless it is first negotiated with the three institutions (the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund), forming what was triumphantly named the ? troika.? Even going as far as to refuse to talk to the Greeks on matters lacking the endorsement of the troika!

Thirdly, (even though the new Greek government has obtained, insignificant victory, for the troika to change name and become ? the institutions ?), the heads themselves of these institutions have failed to meet their political responsibility for the benefit of their experts, that no one now dares contradict and who have a great time, making whatever assessment they want, of a Greek situation that it is unlike any models they have studied in good American or Japanese universities.

Finally, when European experts came to realize that it was not by destroying the last resorts of Greek growth that their debt would be reduced, the so-called experts from the IMF, power crazy, continued to seek to impose suicidal savings on that country, without seeing that it will never be able to repay a debt that must be canceled urgently and in a formal way. Very broadly supported by the majority of shareholders, from Asia, Africa and America, of this noble institution, who have nothing to gain with the use by the IMF of a more lenient approach with a European country.

The only thing one would have hoped from the IMF, in this debacle, is that the Americans, on which it heavily depends upon, find a way to explain to them the major geostrategic importance of Greek stability, and thus Greece continued participation in the eurozone. No, the Americans could not, or would not, do more than call the Greeks every day to ask them to surrender to the diktat of the IMF.

All in all, no matter the great qualities of its Managing Director, whose re-election would be welcome from the French perspective, the IMF became embroiled, and is still embroiled, in a battle that has nothing to do with it. And which could act as a trigger for a new global crisis.

At a time when Asians are challenging the very existence of the Bretton Woods institutions, because they are not given their rightful place there, it is time for Europeans to question the sustainability of an institution that will be, if circumstances turn for the worse, really responsible for the tragedy that would follow a Greek default.

The solution, though, is simple, and the Europeans would have probably applied it a long time ago if the intellectual terrorism of the so-called IMF experts was not present: a reasonable savings plan, socially just, without requiring further assistance, but also with a reduction of the Greek debt to below 100% of GDP, through the cancellation of a significant part of public, bilateral and multilateral debts, that they all know cannot be reimbursed, and that some continue to claim, to save face. And for that, create urgently a genuinely European Monetary Fund, precursor of a Euro Treasury, and a Eurozone Ministry of Finance.

Europeans, solve your problems among yourselves. Rely on your own forces alone. Do not give in to pressures or ways of thinking that came from across the Atlantic or the Pacific. Give yourself a project and take action. It really is about time you did.