Greece has completed the payment of its debts to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) initiated in 2010 following the signing of the first bailout with that body and the European institutions to avoid the country's bankruptcy.
The total amount owed to the IMF amounted to 32 billion euros ($35.09 billion), 20 billion from the first bailout ($21.9 billion) and 12 billion ($13.16 billion) for the second.
From 2010 to 2015 Greece signed three aid programmes totaling 312 billion euros (about 342,095 million dollars), the first two with the IMF and European creditors and the third without the international organization, which nevertheless remained linked as an adviser.
“The Government, paying the country's latest obligations in advance, closes a gray chapter that opened in March 2010. One was that Greeks should not and will never live again,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitstotakis wrote on Tuesday on his Twitter account.
The Conservative leader stressed that Greece's economy “remains firm on the path of progress despite international turmoil.”
With the payment of the last tranche of 1.86 billion euros (about $2.04 billion), approved last week by the European Union rescue fund, an open chapter is closed in May 2010, when the country requested financial assistance from the IMF.
The fund should give its approval to this disbursement, since in principle the advance payments to the IMF should be made simultaneously with those made to European creditors.
The Greek Finance Minister, Jrístos Staikuras, said that with this step Greece sends a “positive message to the markets about the country's financial situation” and also provides savings to the state budget totaling 230 million euros, “for the benefit of Greek society”.
The bailouts forced Greece to implement drastic budget cuts and raise taxes that led to increased unemployment and poverty and led the country to lose a quarter of its gross domestic product.
Despite exiting the rescue program in 2018, Greece is still under a regime of supervision of its finances, an agreement that will be finalized later this year.
In its recent report, IMF welcomed the progress made by Greece in overcoming its structural problems, but urged the Government to raise the minimum wage “prudent” and to freeze civil servants' salaries and pensions.
(With information from EFE)
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