WHEN the euro crisis began in 2010, Germany insisted that the IMF should be brought in as an enforcer: to be tough with the ill-disciplined Greeks and put steel into the soft-hearted European Commission. Three years later the fund is dispensing tough love not just to bailed-out countries but to the euro zone itself. This week in Brussels Christine Lagarde, the IMF’s self-assured boss, was every bit the polite but firm school inspector.Yes, she said, the euro zone had done good work, for instance in starting a banking union. And yes, the commitment by the European Central Bank (ECB) to intervene in bond markets had restored some order. But the euro zone must do better. The chronic underachievement of its economies and its mass unemployment were worrying. “The centrifugal forces across the euro area remain serious and are pulling down growth everywhere,” said the IMF’s annual Article IV consultation.The fund forecasts a deeper-than-expected recession in the euro zone this year, and slow growth in 2014. Disruptive Greece is again falling behind in its reforms, particularly in its promise to cull thousands of civil servants, and will doubtless need another debt write-...
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