Tsipras: IMF should stay out of Greece’s bailout

Mr Tsipras said in an interview with the Financial Times he was “puzzled by the unconstructive attitude of the fund on fiscal and financial issues”. He indicated that the IMF should leave his country’s third bailout to the eurozone when it decides whether to stay involved early next year.
“We think that after six years of managing in extraordinary crisis, Europe now has the institutional capacity to deal successfully with intra-European issues.”
Mr Tsipras’s assertion is likely to anger the German government, which has always insisted the IMF stay on board. Berlin values the fund’s technical expertise as much as it doubts the European Commission’s resolve.
Mr Tsipras also risks alienating the IMF, which is a strong advocate of debt relief for Athens while Germany and other eurozone members are strongly against debt writedowns, although he praised the fund’s support on this issue.
Mr Tsipras said his government wanted to implement bailout measures as swiftly as possible with the aim of recovering sovereignty and getting rid of the so-called “troika” of bailout monitors from the commission, IMF and European Central Bank.
“We believe the sooner we get away from the [bailout] programme the better for our country,” he said. “If Greece completes the first [progress] review in January, we’ll be covering more than 70 per cent of fiscal and financial measures in the agreement.”
Mr Tsipras also sounded confident that Greece would lift all remaining capital controls by March and resume borrowing on international capital markets “before the end of 2016”.
You can read the interview at http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/05edcba6-a73e-11e5-955c-1e1d6de94879.html#axzz3uwE6Evnj