German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble reckons a third bailout for Greece will be less than €10 billion, significantly smaller than each of the previous aid packages, German magazine Focus has 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 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 Mr Schäuble as saying in an advance extract of an interview due to be published today.

In February the German media reported that the German government was preparing for the possibility that the euro zone would have to support Greece with an extra €10 billion to €20 billion. – (Reuters)