With its forecast report the International Monetary Fund set the base for a new negotiation between the Fund and Greece’s European lenders, that is Berlin. In its Fiscal Monitor 2017, the IMF forecasts for Greece a gap of 2.7 billion euros for 2018. The fund estimates that the primary surplus for 2018 will be just 2percent and not 3.5% as is the target set by the country’s European lenders.
Although the Fund did not ask immediately for the additional austerity measures to be implemented in 2018 instead of 2019 and 2020, the risk is high.
Th IMF has already lowered the growth projection to 2.2% from 2.8%.
Athens reaction
There is no issue of taking additional measures for 2018, government sources said on Wednesday, following the release of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Fiscal Monitor report on Greece’s primary surpluses.
“There’s no issue of additional measures for 2018, as the problem of the different forecasts has already been resolved since May 2016, as part of the first [program] review, with the law on the fiscal contingency mechanism,” the sources said.
The sources welcomed the revision of the IMF’s forecasts for the primary surpluses based on today’s Fiscal Monitor report, noting that the Fund last year expected a primary surplus of 0.1 percent for 2016.
“Instead, it now accepts an over-performance of almost seven times above the target of 0.5 percent to 3.3 percent, or 5.8 billion euros above its estimations in the autumn of 2016,” they added.
The same sources said that the forecast of a 1.8-percent primary surplus in 2017 is still above the 0.7 percent IMF forecast made in the previous report, which confirms Greece will achieve the program’s goals.
Concerning the IMF forecast for a primary surplus of 2.0 percent instead of a 3.5 percent target for 2018 as envisioned in the bailout program, is still higher than the initial estimate for a 1.6 percent seen in October 2016, adding that the European institutions and the government believe it will be achieved.
PS this nightmare has no end…
