The great financial crisis of 2008, which almost caused the global financial system to explode, found the International Monetary Foundation stranded and totally undependable.

The experts of the international financial center that supervised the global banking system was completely entangled by its dependency on the big American banks and was blind to the bubble and the crisis that was to come.

Up to that point they praised the international banking sectors and offered an alibi to the equally dependent rating agencies to give AAA certificates to highly problematic banking institutions.

Until the very last moment they presented Lehman Brothers, the most infected American bank, as reliable, robust and protected from all dangers.

During that period the International Monetary Fund was heavily criticized, had become synonymous to unreliability and the international press stressed its inability to predict the great crisis. At some point its role and purpose was even cast into doubt.

And while everyone doubted its structures and ability to prevent and intervene in crises, the debt crisis emerged and the international financial problem shifted from the USA to Europe.

In the fall of 2009 the IMF was seeking a new role in international financial affairs and tiny Greece, which was introduced into this crisis as the weakest link in Europe, gave it the opportunity of a rebirth.

The International Monetary Fund’s potential involvement in European financial affairs was greatly debated.

At the end of November 2009, Lucas Papadimos, vice president at the European Central Bank at the time, traveled to Athens in secret to meet with Giorgos Papandreou and to try to convince him to avoid any potential IMF intervention in the management of the Greek financial problem.

The prime minister at the time overlooked that warning, or rather better, he ignored it. Instead of doing what was necessary, to take measures in order to control the deficits, he continued talking to his American consultants and flirting with the idea of an intervention from the International Monetary Fund.

At that point he was unable to comprehend the consequences of his actions – he did not, after all, have the necessary tools to interpret them. By avoiding what rescue measures were available, he was trapped and in May 2010 having accepted the bailout, he installed the International Monetary Fund in Greece and, by extension, in Europe.

In the years that followed the Fund’s involvement in managing the European debt crisis expanded and its supervisory role greatly increased.

Via Greece, the Fund managed to “wash away” its great shame from 2008 and once again became a central player in the international financial system.

That is why they want to maintain their supervisory role in the Greek program by all means.

The negotiations of the past few days are more associated with their own insistence on remaining in Greece, than with the actual problems of the Greek economy.

It is unfortunate that we offered the International Monetary Fund the opportunity to “wash” itself. That, unfortunately, is the bitter truth…

Antonis Karakousis