International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said she is not in the mood to renegotiate the terms of Greece’s bailout agreement.
“I am not in a negotiation or renegotiation mood at all,” Lagarde said in an interview on CBNC television today. “We are in a fact-finding mood.”
“I’m sure that they will have excellent numbers to show in various directions,” Lagarde said in the CNBC interview. “I’m very interested in seeing what has been done in the last few months in terms of complying with the program,” imposed by Greece’s international lenders, noted the IMF managing director.
Asked by the CNBC journalist, whether pressure on countries to implement the agreements is too extreme, she replied, “There is a clear understanding in all European, particularly the eurozone authorities, that they have to be extremely vigilant in their fiscal policies, in their growth policies, and in accommodating both short-term sensible contractions, consolidations, rather, and longer term anchoring of their determination to keep the deficit down and reduce their debts. Lets not forget that we have quite a few countries in the eurozone that are on the program with the IMF. There are, therefore, under very strict control about what they do in terms of fiscal policy.”
Lagarde also said that “it’s not enough” for Europe to plan a banking union. “We think that a fiscal union is the next step that needs to be explored,” Lagarde said.
The IMF chief said “maybe one day” there will be one single debt agency for the whole euro zone, and “maybe one of these days” one single finance minister for the region bound by a common currency.
Source: www.cnbc.com
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