IMF approves €28bn loan to Greece

Financial Times
March 15, 2012

The International Monetary Fund approved its part of a second international bailout for Greece on Thursday but warned that Athens had no room for error in its attempts to return to debt sustainability.

The fund’s 24-member board agreed a €28bn loan as part of a €174bn bailout for Greece – a smaller share than the IMF’s contribution to previous eurozone rescue packages.

The board decision was all but assured after Christine Lagarde, the fund’s managing director, publicly proposed the loan last week. People present at the meeting said one director, Paulo Nogueira Batista, who represents Brazil and eight other governments, abstained – the traditional way of showing dissent at the board.

Mr Batista confirmed reports that he had abstained. “I remain deeply uneasy about the Greece programme,” Mr Batista, who said he was speaking in a personal capacity, told the Financial Times. “For the past two years, Europe has taken a Panglossian view of Greece’s likely growth while the economy has continued to contract”.

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