In a speech made at the London School of Economics yesterday, George Papandreou stated that it was Angela Merkel who insisted that the IMF be involved in the Greek bailout programme.
According to the former Prime Minister who signed the initial Memorandum agreement with Greece’s lenders in 2010, the German chancellor insisted on the IMF’s involvement because she did not trust the European Commission to monitor Greece.
“When I was Prime Minister and the markets said that we would go bankrupt I had nowhere else to turn,” Mr Papandreou is reported to have said during the speech.
When asked why he did not conduct a referendum in 2010 over the Memorandum, Mr Papandreou defended his decision saying that the necessary legislation did not exist and that the country was then only days away from bankruptcy.
The former Prime Minister also stated that the president of the European Commission should be directly elected by European voters. He also sounded a note of caution over Europe’s future saying that in 2050 he did not believe that any European country would be part of the G20.