The Director of International Monetary Fund (IMF), Poul Thomson, posted an article on IMF’s blog on Thursday entitled ‘Greece: Towards a Workable Plan’ claiming that Greece will need to take up to 9.5 billion euros measures.

Mr. Thomson referred to difficult political decisions that the government must take, so as to achieve a sustainable program warning that a credible plan for Greece is needed to avoid Grexit fears to resurface.

As Mr. Thomson stated, with his article he wanted to clarify International Monetary Fund’s views and role in the process.

“No amount of pension reforms will make Greece’s debt sustainable without debt relief, and no amount of debt relief will make Greece’s pension system sustainable without pension reforms” he argued adding that both need to come about.

“There is no doubt that both Greece and its European partners will face politically difficult decisions in the coming months to arrive at a program that is viable”.

Regarding the pension cuts he said: “To reach its ambitious medium-term target for the primary surplus of 3½ percent of GDP, Greece will need to take measures in the order of some 4-5 percent of GDP.”

This would mean that the government must take measures of 7.5 to 9.5 billion euros, while Mr. Thomsen stated that ” We cannot see how Greece can do so without major savings on pensions”.

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