Greece on Saturday demanded “explanations” from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after Wikileaks said the lender sought a crisis “event” to push the indebted nation into concluding talks over its reforms.
IMF officials, in an internal discussion, allegedly voiced exasperation with Greece on its slow pace of reform, complaining Athens only moved decisively when faced with the peril of default, the website said. An “event” was thus needed to drive the threat of default and get the Greeks to act, one official purportedly says.
The “event” is not described in the transcript placed on the Wikileaks website on Saturday.
The official, assessing the state of the talks and the political calendar, predicts the European Union will stop discussions “for a month” before Britain’s EU referendum on June 23.