Greece welcomes IMF report on bailout mistakes

Greece on Thursday welcomed an acknowledgement by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that the lender was responsible for "notable failures" in the country's bailout, underestimating how much austerity would push the economy deeper into recession, dpa reported. "We welcome the report, which is objective," Finance Minister Giannis Stournaras was quoted as saying in the daily Kathimerini newspaper. The report "will allow the chance to recognise the errors which have been made so that they are not repeated." An internal review of the Greek bailout programme by the IMF found that the organisation had made serious errors during the last three years. The IMF admitted that it had underestimated the recessionary impact of the fiscal policies Greece was asked to implement as part of the bailouts, the first of which was agreed in May 2010. "The fiscal targets became even more ambitious once the downturn exceeded expectations," the report said, adding that it could not have slowed the pace of belt-tightening reforms. Athens has so far received about 200 billion euros (262 billion dollars) in loans from a rescue programme totaling 240 billion euros. Repeated austerity measures, which include harsh salary and pension cuts as well as tax hikes have helped reduce the country's budget deficit but at the same time left it deeper in recession than what the IMF and its European partners had initially forecast. Unemployment has surged to more than 27 per cen