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Kassioun Editorial 1253: Why the International Monetary Fund Again?
The official statements made last July—chief among them the remarks of the Governor of the Central Bank of Syria, who affirmed that, in accordance with the directives of the Presidency of the Republic, the country would not resort to external debt nor borrow from the IMF or the World Bank—had reassured Syrians who know all too well the “formulas” of these two institutions and the heavy prices they entail. The policies previously tried in Syria under the banners of “reform” and “liberalization” produced nothing but the systematic destruction of the living standards of the poor, a rapid erosion of the role of the state, and a massive social explosion whose costs the country continues to pay today.
However, on November 17, the IMF issued a press statement revealing that a team from the IMF had visited Damascus between the 10 and 13 November to assess the economic situation, and that an agreement had been reached with the Syrian authorities on “an intensive cooperation program for the coming phase”, including paving the way for the resumption of Article IV consultations—the annual reviews the IMF conducts to assess the policies of member states, which in practice function as a monitoring and political tool serving the interests of the countries of the center. These consultations had been suspended in Syria since 2009, just before the eruption of events in 2011.
This statement coincided with comments by the Minister of Finance confirming that there would be a resident IMF representative in Damascus, and that the World Bank would also open an office there. Thus, the door is being thrown wide open again to the same global system that played a central role in undermining Syria’s social stability over the past two decades.
The history of the IMF is no secret, and its economic formula are well known to all: reducing social subsidies, raising the prices of basic goods and services, freezing wages, cutting public investment spending, liquidating and privatizing the public sector, and granting broad tax exemptions to major capital owners and corporations. The result has always been the same: increased poverty, the collapse of national production, and a weakened state unable to protect its society.
From Latin America to Africa, from Asia to Eastern Europe, dozens of countries have tried these “formulas”, and the outcome has consistently served to enrich the major corruption elites and impoverish the overwhelming majority. Syria itself is no exception. Since the early 2000s, under misleading slogans such as “social market economy” and “economic reform”, the Assad regime began gradually implementing the IMF’s policies: the state abandoned key productive sectors, reduced and ultimately eliminated subsidy programs, rapidly raised prices, and curtailed public investment—crushing the majority of Syrians and pushing them to the brink of destitution. As living conditions deteriorated and justice disappeared, the collapsing regime had no recourse but to tighten its security grip to suppress voices calling for change.
Today, the same door is being reopened as if no lessons had been learned. Can Syria follow the same path and expect different results? Is it not its duty to learn from the experiences of others—and from its own previous experience? Returning to the IMF means returning to the same vicious cycle: more impoverishment, more social tension, and the preparation for future explosions in what is already the most economically and socially dangerous moment in decades.
The path that begins with “technical cooperation” with the IMF always ends with dictations, conditions, and constraints that place national sovereignty and social justice on the same altar. The real choice before the country today is not to summon external actors to reproduce disaster in new forms, but to rebuild a productive national economy based on justice, equitable wealth distribution, and the participation of Syrians themselves in shaping economic decision-making. Betting on the IMF again is a bet on an old formula with outcomes already known in advance.
