(Reuters) -
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble reckons a third bailout for Greece
would be less than 10 billion euros, significantly smaller than each of the
previous aid packages, German magazine Focus reported.
Greece was
cut off from markets in 2010 as the true scale of its debt burden became
apparent. After four years of painful measures to contain debt, two bailouts
totalling 240 billion euros and a hit on private bondholders, the Greek economy
is expected to return to modest growth this year.
"In
2022, according to the troika's forecasts, Greece's debt will reach a level
that can be described as sustainable so it may be that Greece will need to make
use of limited aid again," the magazine quotes Schaeuble as saying in an
advance extract of an interview due to be published on Monday.
He said the
granting of a third aid package was conditional on Greece continuing to meet
the terms set by its "troika" of international lenders - the
International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central
Bank.
Such a
package would be a "much smaller sum than in the first two programmes - so
more like a one-digit billion amount," he said.
In
February, German media reported that Berlin was preparing for the possibility
that the euro zone would have to support Greece with an extra 10 billion to 20
billion euros. (Reporting by Michelle Martin; Editing by Lynne O'Donnell)
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