August 9, 2010
On a warm August Friday in Athens last week, the visiting International Monetary Fund Chief for Greece, Poul Thomsen, sounded as upbeat as the local socialist government about progress made over the first three months of the rescue program.
On Aug. 5, the IMF, the European Central Bank and the European Commission — collectively known locally as the troika — waxed lyrical about how the debt-strapped Mediterranean country has made “a good start in fiscal consolidation and reforms to the pension system and the labor market.”
Further, Thomsen has endeared himself to the average Greek as he ran the local media gauntlet by sermonizing about how the “wealthy will have to pay their share, after pensioners and workers did their bit,” and that “no new austerity measures are slated for this year.” And that is a good thing because the IMF had been unfairly demonized by the same media that now applaud his “socialist sensibilities.” By helping trump up more local support, the prospects of the bailout’s success are lifted.
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