This is an interesting development. I really like this kind of large scale economics so here's what I think. I have a lot of academic background in economic research. Although I am a software developer today, I follow such things a lot.
I don't know how much economics you follow but how the EU dealt with the financial crisis and the USA did are opposing schools of thought. At the time the IMF (mostly Germans) unanimously agreed that forcing austerity was the right thing to do. Compared to the American answer of bailout and keep everything supported until it could sort itself out without imploding. Now the IMF has turned a 180 and is against austerity.
Here.This is just one of the many articles about it.
On its face, austerity is a reasonable request to a country that 100% created their own mess with unsustainable policies (IE retirement age of 55, economy/bureaucracy hostile to new businesses). Austerity brought with it a lot of unintended (but not unforeseen) side effects. Austerity further depressed the European economy as a whole. Germany's economy is stagnating greatly. This is especially an interesting development in Greece, because part of the deal was to loosen Germany's tariffs on imports, which drove their competitors out of business and also made a lot of people unemployed who could no longer buy the goods and services Germany was trying to sell which then led to layoffs in Germany... EuroMess.
In regards to the "act like Iceland and tell everyone to fuck off" attitude, that is a political and economical impossibility. Iceland had the ability to do this because they are A.) A population of 330,000 people, B.) A sovereign nation and C.) Not enough economic clout do truly draw the ire of the EU/UK financial interests. So just get that stupid fucking concept out of your damn mind and never bring it up again.
But I am getting off point. This party appears to have a reasonable plan to "do as much as they can" to repay their debts while not economically (literally?) starving their people. The IMF really dropped the ball here, but it isn't like it was a bad idea overall, it just ended up being a terrible idea that should never be considered again. Regardless of how Greece became part of the EU, they are part of the EU now and they must solve these problems together. Among the economists of the world its generally understood that you can't really judge a particular policy until you try it, so you can't fault the designers because of an unintended outcome. If the IMF follows the USA example and just supports Greece while they sort it out to prevent implosion. Greece has to push for policies that more closely align with the other European countries to prevent further problems. But fuck knows how long that will take. The IMF may be pushing against austerity now, but they need more of the financial players with skin in the game to bite on that particular hook to get money moving. Which will also be a hard thing to do.
