Top German economist Lars Feld on Thursday told participants at an Economist conference in Frankfurt that he believes German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble will not back down in negotiations with the IMF over the Greek debt issue.
Feld, the director of the Walter Eucken Institut and a member of the German council of economic experts, made the statement at the same venue where Greek FinMin Euclid Tsakalotos and Bank of Greece (BoG) Gov. Yannis Stournaras spoke a day earlier, along with top European creditors and ECB officials.
He also intimated that one likely scenario is for the IMF's return to the Greek program, as a lender, to be pushed backed.
Feld said the crucial parameter in the current Greek program "calculus" is the country's growth rate. Moreover, in contrast to consistent and often shrill criticism in some Greek political quarters over the 2012 PSI "haircut" of Greek bonds, Feld said the move was the greater debt reduction in history.
In a nod to the current Schaeuble argument, he said another round of debt relief is not absolutely necessary.
