To Vima — Delia Velculescu, the IMF’s representative in Greece is about to replaced after a stormy three-year stint by the IMF, reportedly upon her own request, by Peter Dolman.
In Greece, she was portrayed by many as the iron lady in the troika of creditors.
Velculescu was posted in Greece after another stormy stint in Cyprus, where her stance was considered tough and aggressive, triggering the consternation and even rage of Cyprus’ President Nikos Anastasiadis.
She will be replaced by Peter Dolman, who has worked on IMF programmes in Belarus, Ireland, Russia, and Ukraine.
Velculescu was the IMF’s representative in Nicosia in 2013, when the disastrous for depositors haircut on bank deposits caused a popular uproar.
At one tumultuous meeting at the presidential mansion in Nicosia, Anastasiadis is said to have exploded with the remark, “I can’t stand you. I cannot negotiate with you any longer,” forcefully pushing his chair to the ground.
In Athens, she will also be remembered for her leaked conversation with the IMF’s Poul Thomsen, which was published by Wikileaks in April, 2016.
During the discussion, Thomsen said he would not accept a light austerity programme for Greece, and also spoke of threatening Berlin with an IMF withdrawal from the Greek programme suggesting a ‘credit event’, around the time of the Brexit referendum ff Germany did not agree to debt relief for Greece – which it did not.
Bloomberg at the time commented that “the leak shows officials linking Greek issue with U.K. referendum risking general political destabilization in Europe”, using the Greek people as a pawn in their negotiations..
