Eastern Europe: Review of IMF programs
Overview:
Not so long ago the IMF seemed increasingly irrelevant in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union (FSU) compared to the central role it played in the 1990s. Almost all countries in the region felt that they had graduated from its financial support, highly conditional as it is on the implementation of specific policy measures. The onset of the more severe leg of the global financial crisis in autumn 2008 sent the most badly affected economies hurriedly back to the Fund (Ukraine, Hungary and Latvia) to make use of its newly expedited disbursement procedures. Many other countries have followed this route even if they have, instead, requested more standard programs. Other countries are reluctantly deciding that an IMF program is unavoidable in a world of lower private capital inflows and weak growth.