Ever since its debt crisis in 2010, Greece has been at the center of a plethora of economic, political, and socio-political issues that have taken the forefront of international scrutiny, particularly, the most recent economic turmoil that has afflicted the nation. After years of bailouts, civil unrest, and euro-zone destabilization, Greece and the International Monetary Fund have come to a shaky agreement regarding a hefty $97.8 billion bailout and the implementation of harsh austerity measures.

The most recent development has manifested itself in an eavesdropped conversation published by Wikileaks. The discussion among Poul Thomsen, the head of the IMF European Department, Delia Velculescu, the head of the IMF mission in Greece, and Iva Petrova, a Washington-based IMF fiscal expert, concerned the rapidly approaching massive debt repayment promised by Greece by July 20.

The conversation, when summarized swiftly, was about pressuring Germany into forgiving debt owed by Greece and subtle hints at IMF abandonment of the Greece initiative. The initiative was entirely orchestrated to maintain Greek membership in the European Union and to prevent the nation from defaulting on its debt; experts have argued that the economic troubles, currently contained in Greece, would inevitably spill into other parts of the world through a domino effect of economic collapses or recessions.

The worst-case hypotheticals furrowing the brows of IMF officials and putting Greek leaders in cold sweats seem nearly inevitable at this point, and the two potential remedies to these crises remain in contention among other European powers: forgiving large swathes of Greek debt or the IMF lifting the austerity measures imposed on the nation after negotiations last year.

Germany, perhaps Greece’s most intimidating loan shark, has made it abundantly clear that it has absolutely no interest in forgetting the debt. Germany, perhaps taking a lesson from history and the disaster that war-reparations some decades ago were to the German economy, has displayed an admirably reasonable demeanor and doesn’t seem too concerned with collecting the $478 billion debt until the Greeks can realistically handle such a monumental sum.

So where does that leave us in the plot of an unrelenting Greek tragedy, the IMF and its harsh and seemingly counterproductive austerity measures? Greece’s deep recession has shredded the threads of the country’s fragile social fabric, and the austerity measures work to further destabilize a nation in shambles. The increasingly heavy taxation strains a workforce afflicted with a dismal 24 percent unemployment rate, as reported in December 2015.

The drastic cut in social programs works to inflame the wounds inflicted by the bleak economic conditions and strains an over-worked and under-paid domestic workforce. When nearly 2,000 schools close, who takes up the responsibility of educating the children? When health care is cut by nearly $2.27 billion, who picks up the slack?

The austerity measures have heightened as well. In December, the Greek Parliament approved an extension in cuts of $6.5 billion in public spending and tax increases of $2.27 billion.

Rather than stifling economies with harsh neo-liberal-fueled austerity measures, the IMF should work to stimulate economies. The IMF’s mission is to create realistic recovery plans for economies in jeopardy, yet it seems to be crippling a country to which the Western world owes so much of its culture, heritage, and democratic ideology.