European Commission officials deny disagreements with the International Monetary Fund over the Greek debt and claim the disagreements are between the creditors and Greece. This unofficial statement came after the Greek government announced on Tuesday that the EC and the IMF disagree with each other, thereby hindering negotiations with Greece and making a staff level agreement impossible at this stage. An EC official told Greek media that the EC and the IMF have a common goal, and that is finding a solution to the Greek debt problem. “Essentially, the EC and the IMF are asking the exact same things from Greece since 2010,” he said. The Greek government’s claim comes after a Financial Times report that Poul Thomsen, Director of the European Department of the IMF, said that the Greek debt is not viable and needs a haircut from the European side, since debt writeoffs are against IMF regulations. The EC official said that at the moment the two sides are trying to decide on fiscal measures for 2015 and the disagreements are between Greece and the troika of international and not between the lenders themselves. Greece’s European partners say that the claims of the Greek government are a result of inexperience. Both the EC and the IMF want to make sure that Athens completes the bailout program, the EC official said, concluding that at this moment, it is up to the Greek government to bring a list of measures in order for the review to be completed. Yet, this is not going to happen before the Eurogroup on May 11. Athens is talking about blackmail from its lenders, with Greek officials saying that Europe and the IMF have drawn red lines demanding austerity measures, taking advantage of Greece’s lack of liquidity. Creditors, on the other hand, claim that Greece is not backing down on certain crucial issues and that there are many different voices within the Greek government that make reaching an agreement extremely difficult.
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