IMF's Christine Lagarde: There will be consequences to restructuring Greece's debt after elections

Greece's leftist Syriza party, which widened its opinion poll lead over the ruling conservatives ahead of the Jan. 25 vote, has stated it will cancel austerity imposed under the bailout and call for an international conference to renegotiate debts of Greece and some other euro zone states.

However, Christine Lagarde, the chief of the International Monetary Fund, has warned Greece that there would be consequences to restructuring its debt after elections where opponents of the bailout dominate in the polls.

Syriza's leader Alexis Tsipras has suggested a conference modelled on the 1953 meeting in London at which Western powers agreed to cut the debts of West Germany by 50 percent after World War Two. In December, he called for a similar "moment of solidarity" with Greece.

"As a principle, collective endeavours are welcome but at the same time a debt is a debt and it is a contract," IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde told The Irish Times in an interview on Monday when asked about the general idea of holding a debt conference.

"Defaulting, restructuring, changing the terms has consequences on the signature and the confidence in the signature," she said.

The periodical added that Lagarde reserved judgment on whether Greece's debt pile, at 175 per cent of annual economic output economic output, is sustainable.

The Irish Times also quoted her as saying the broad endorsement of the European Central Bank's (ECB) unlimited sovereign bond-buying by the advocate general of the European Court of Justice, last week would provide "comfort" on the options available to them.