Disgraced ex-IMF chief Strauss-Kahn slams new Greek deal as ‘deadly blow’

The former head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has decried the latest deal reached on a new Greek bailout as “profoundly damaging.”

While admitting that the deal removed the risk of a Grexit, he stressed that “the conditions of the agreement, however, are positively alarming for those who still believe in the future of Europe.”

“What happened last weekend was for me profoundly damaging, if not a deadly blow,” he wrote in the open letter entitled “To my German friends” published on Saturday.

Strauss-Kahn referred to the deal as a “diktat” and accused European leaders of putting ideology and political gains ahead of real problems, and thus risking the integrity of the European Union.

“Political leaders seemed far too savvy to want to seize the opportunity of an ideological victory over a far left government at the expense of fragmenting the Union,” he said, adding that negotiations had ended up in a “crippling situation” due to this.

He also accused the creditors of adopting ineffective strategies towards Greece, more intended to “punish,” than to promote the future of Europe.

“In counting our billions instead of using them to build, in refusing to accept an albeit obvious loss by constantly postponing any commitment on reducing the debt, in preferring to humiliate a people because they are unable to reform, and putting resentments – however justified – before projects for the future, we are turning our backs on what Europe should be, we are turning our backs on (…) citizen solidarity,” Strauss-Kahn said in his letter.

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He also emphasized the necessity of reforming the whole currency union calling it “an imperfect monetary union forged on an ambiguous agreement between France and Germany,” adding that neither Germany nor France had a “true common vision of the Union,” being “trapped in misleading and inconsistent” concepts.

He stressed that Europe could not be saved “simply by imposing rules of sound management,” but only by mutual respect built “through democracy and dialogue, through reason, and not by force.”

He also cautioned European leaders against taking measures that created division in Europe and being overly dependent on their perceived “friend” – the USA.

“An alliance between a few European countries, even led by the most powerful among them, will be subjugated by our friend and ally the United States in the maybe not so distant future,” he said.

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Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF’s former managing director, gained notoriety for the numerous sex offences he has been accused of committing.

He was accused of sexual assault on a New York hotel maid and the attempted rape of a French journalist in 2011. He was also allegedly involved in a prostitution ring in France in 2012, and “aggravated pimping” at the Carlton hotel in Lille in 2013.
He was acquitted of all charges, although his reputation was damaged.