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A “blue on blue” attack on the Commission

The patrol of France draws a "60" as an anniversary. And not to celebrate the 60% maximum debt criterion :-) (credit: Ministry of Defense)
The patrol of France draws a "60" as a birthday. And not to celebrate the 60% maximum debt criterion 🙂 (credit: Ministry of Defense)

(BRUSSELS2) In military terms, this is called an attack "blue on blue". A friendly fire! Until now, the European Commission refused to recognize any error in the economic policy imposed on Greece. Again yesterday, one of the spokespersons for the European executive, refusing to respond to certain criticisms of the press, answered me: we are busy working on solutions for the future, not rewriting history”. The blow came from Washington, from an institution that cannot be suspected of unbridled leftism: the IMF. In a report that broke through to the public and analyzes "ex post", the 2010 agreement, the International Monetary Fund returns, in fact, to its own errors and those of the Troika. It clearly calls into question the team of Olli Rehn, who had little experience of crisis management and was a "bit" dogmatic...

Zero crisis management experience

Areas of expertise and experience differed within the Troika. Admittedly, the European institutions have brought an integrated vision to the study of the Greek economy and underlined the magnitude of the possible spillovers within Europe » ; a point of view which was not that adopted by the Fund, which was more accustomed to analyzing problems with a specific focus on the country concerned acknowledges the report. But he points to European weaknesses. " The European Commission tended to establish principled positions by consensus, had limited success in implementing conditionality under the Stability and Growth Pact and had no experience of crisis management”.

A Commission more interested in respecting the Maastricht criteria than growth

“While the (IMF) had experience with fiscal adjustment, the EC had its own Maastricht fiscal targets. (...) The Commission placed more emphasis on reforms linked to compliance with EU standards than on the impact of growth. What hasn't beaucoup contributed to the growth identification of structural reforms. In the financial sector, the European Central Bank had a clear interest in taking the lead but was not an expert in banking supervision where the Fund had the specialist knowledge. »

A somewhat "bazaar" troika

“There was no clear division of responsibilities within the Troika If between the World Bank and the FM, there is a distribution of tasks, with the European Commission, it seemed more complicated. “The three institutions had different internal procedures and the 'program' documentation was voluminous, duplicated, and subject to varying degrees of secrecy. Despite everything, the coordination seems to have been quite good, given the circumstances. write the authors of the report not without humor.

Download the report "Ex-Post evaluation of exceptional access under the 2010 Stand-By arrangement" RapGreeceEcoEval@IMF130520 (page 31 on the troika)

Nicolas Gros Verheyde

Chief editor of the B2 site. Graduated in European law from the University of Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne and listener to the 65th session of the IHEDN (Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Défense Nationale. Journalist since 1989, founded B2 - Bruxelles2 in 2008. EU/NATO correspondent in Brussels for Sud-Ouest (previously West-France and France-Soir).

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