Guzmán seeks to move forward in Washington towards a debt agreement: today he meets IMF technicians and tomorrow the interviewed director, Kristalina Georgieva

(Washington DC). The Minister of the Economy, Martin guzman, will begin this Monday a new attempt, which could be final, to renegotiate the payment of the debt of 44,000 million dollars with the International Monetary Fund as part of the Annual Meeting that the multilateral entity maintains jointly with the World Bank.

Economic sources said that “The objective is to continue to advance in the negotiations with the IMF; Important steps have been taken, but there are still issues to be resolved “and therefore the team led by Guzmán” will work on the technical aspects of negotiations on a program to replace the failed Stand By program, negotiated by the Juntos government por el Cambio. “.

Guzmán heads the delegation with the president of the BCRA, Miguel Pesce. This Monday, the two, with their respective technical teams, will meet with the staff of the IMF headed by the deputy director of the Western Hemisphere Department, J.Kozlie Street, the head of the “Argentine mission”, Luis Cubeddu.

And tomorrow, the Minister will meet the Managing Director of the Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, in what will be perhaps the most important meeting of his visit to Washington. Georgieva supported Guzmán’s negotiation with private creditors, but is called into question, following accusations of unduly favoring China when she was director of operations at the World Bank.

Delivery time

The negotiation has specific limits: next March the deadline for the payment of 19,000 million US dollars that results from the repayment schedules negotiated in the loan of 57,000 million US dollars that the Fund approved in 2018, under the chairmanship of Mauricio Macri, of those who disbursed the 44,000 million US dollars currently owed.

Guzmán and the delegation will seek to move forward in modifying the amounts and terms of repayment in a rarefied environment. Marked, on the one hand, by the defeat of the government in the primary elections and the crisis and the clash that followed between President Alberto Fernández, Guzmán’s main political supporter, and Vice-President Cristina Kirchner.

The September defeat of the ruling coalition also made headlines in the halls of Washington-based multilateral entities. “It was understood that Cristina had beaten President Fernández, and this could be an important factor in the credit renegotiations,” a Latin American official told Infobae, familiar with the talks between Argentina and the IMF, highlighting the effect this could have on Fernández’s team and, in particular, on Guzmán’s stability and bargaining power.

But under the current circumstances, Argentina’s main challenge is not domestic politics, but Georgieva’s immediate future, surrounded by the results of a report that accuses him of exercising undue influence within the World Bank to improve China’s ratings, which the official refused.

Georgieva’s weakness

The official information that the IMF provided to the press shows that Georgieva will open the autumn days on Monday by moderating a round table on Covid-19 and fragile states, in which will participate, among others, António Guterres, the secretary General of the United Nations.

Beyond the official agenda, however, the opening of the Assembly was preceded by a weekend in which the halls of multilaterals boiled over with rumors about Georgieva’s possible impeachment, even before the inauguration of the autumn days. Something which, for the moment, has not been confirmed.

On the same Sunday, the influential Financial Times published a report that said The United States and Japan, the two nations with the most votes in the IMF, are pushing for Georgieva’s departure. But the European governments of countries like Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy are in favor of keeping the civil servant, of Bulgarian origin, in her post.

The accusation

U.S. law firm WilmerHale investigated the drafting of the 2018 Doing Business report and accused Georgieva of pressuring analysts to draft the report in favor of China. Wednesday, with the approach of the conference of October, the board of directors of the IMF heard the explanations of the managing director still of the institution.

When WilmerHale’s report went public, the US Treasury Department called the allegations serious, the same allegations Georgieva denied.

During the appearance, Lanny breuer, an attorney for the Bulgarian official and former head of the US Department of Justice’s criminal division, said WilmerHale’s investigation is full of “fundamental procedural and substantive errors.”

Other analysts explain the plot around Georgieva as an effort by conservative officials, some of them linked to the management of Donald trump, to take control of the IMF.

Georgieva’s weakness is bad news for Guzmán and the Argentine government. His eventual departure would leave Argentina sailing through rougher waters.

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