Europe unresolved

Abstract

This chapter examines the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s pivotal yet contentious role in Europe post-GFC, marking a significant departure from its historical focus on developing countries. It explores the multi-layered conflicts ignited by the IMF’s lending arrangements among the Troika institutions, European states, and within the IMF, alongside domestic upheavals mirroring those in the Global South. Despite shifts toward accommodating capital controls and social policies, the IMF’s European engagement underscores its nuanced adaptation to the politics of powerful states, and at times its subsumption in it. The chapter also argues that most of those conflicts remain unresolved for all three actors, the Troika, the IMF itself, and European states. It culminates by reflecting on the IMF’s positioning in recent crises.