December 14, 2011
The International Monetary Fund stepped up pressure on Greece on Wednesday, saying promised reforms were behind schedule in most areas and the delays were stalling recovery from years of recession.
Greece, crushed under debt amounting to some 160 percent of gross domestic product, has been dependent on international support to keep paying its bills since an escalating financial crisis shut it out of bond markets last year.
Poul Thomsen, deputy director of the IMF's European department, said Athens could not rely on more tax increases and blunt across-the-board spending cuts, but needed to look at "taboos" that could include laying off more state workers.
"Greece needs to consider more aggressively closing down redundant state enterprises and entities, and it might have to accept in the process involuntary redundancies," Thomsen, who heads the IMF's mission to Greece, told a conference in Athens.
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