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The Popular Campaign to Drop Egypt’s Debt issued a statement Thursday opposing the IMF loan and questioning the lack of information about “the extent to which the Egyptian economy needs this massive amount of dollars.” The group protested that there had been no discussion of alternative ways of financing public spending, adding that the government had obtained foreign loans amounting to $6 billion over the past year without any democratic oversight. Governments appointed by the military since the revolution had also borrowed record amounts from Egyptian banks, it said, and “it is not known how they were spent.”

It was particularly relevant then that this morning's sessions, which focussed on lessons for Europe from the global South, looked in some detail as to how the 'Third World debt' crisis had been created and prolonged by all manner of 'bail-out' and restructuring packages. We heard from representatives from Peru, the Philippines, Brazil, Morocco, Argentina, and Zimbabwe (virtually), who showed how their debt crises were used to force detrimental policies on their countries by institutions like the International Monetary Fund, which set back their economies for decades.

Egypt currently owes nearly £100 million ($160 million) to the UK.