WASHINGTON - The Europeans want it and Athens is resigned to its presence, but the International Monetary Fund has still not decided whether it will participate in the third financial bailout for Greece, and continues to set out its conditions.
Demonstrators march in central Athens to condemn a planned overhaul of Greece's pension system demanded by its international creditors
"We have not decided anything in the financial sense on a possible participation," IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said in an interview published Friday.
In 2010 and again in 2012, the world's crisis lender was a key member of the "troika" behind the rescue plans for Greece, together with the European Commission and the European Central Bank.
Deeply worried over a meltdown of the eurozone, the IMF had gone so far as to create a special "systemic exception" that allowed it to go beyond its loan limit rules in special situations.
It then committed its largest loan in history to Athens, eventually close to 50 billion euros ($55 billion) in total.
The IMF then took a central role in setting the terms for Athens's rescue, dictating economic reforms and instituting financial discipline, which included a harsh dose of austerity, in return for its involvement.
- IMF wants to move on -
But the times have changed, even as the country remains in recession after five years under the stewardship of the troika.
The IMF does not appear now so willing to join the Europeans, who agreed last summer on a new 86-billion-euro plan to support Greece.
Yet, under pressure from the Germans, the European institutions have made the IMF's involvement a primary condition of their deal.
And the Greeks, who have alleged that the Fund bears "criminal" responsibility for their suffering under the first two programs, which failed to stabilize the economy, have also accepted the idea.
"The IMF's participation is planned. We are sticking to this commitment," Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos told the German newspaper Handelsblatt this week.
So far the IMF has remained unmoved by the appeals.
Before it gets involved again, the Fund is pressing Greece to implement more tough austerity measures.
It also insists that the European institutions cut Greece's debt burden, which has reached nearly 200 percent of the size of its economy.
"We need both legs," IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said this week, referring to the two conditions. He stressed that the Fund remains in talks with the other parties.
But the IMF also appears desirous of moving beyond the controversial chapter in its history, which saw it twisting its own rules to lend huge sums to Greece before, the country had stabilized its finances, or made its debt "sustainable," as is usually required for a Fund loan.
"There are a lot of people at the IMF, particularly in the emerging markets, who are saying, 'What's going on here? The IMF has got one set of rules for the emerging markets where they're tough, and when it comes to the Europeans, they don't mind that the country doesn't meet the conditions,'" said Desmond Lachman, a former IMF official.
He said the Greece case had raised questions over the Fund's credibility.
At any rate, the IMF can afford to wait. Unlike in 2010, the European institutions have a financial rescue mechanism now that has reduced fears of the Greece crisis dragging down Europe or the global economy.
In playing for time, the IMF hopes to overcome the resistance of the Europeans to lightening the burden of Greece's debts, by lengthening the repayment schedule.
Even then, the question is whether the Fund will decide to remain on the sidelines over the longer term.
France doesn't think it can. In October Finance Minister Michel Sapin said there was "no doubt" that the IMF ultimately will join the third bailout program for Greece.
The IMF's Rice dismissed talk that it was going to stay away. "There's no truth to that," he said.
In any case, the Fund cannot walk away completely. Athens still owes it about 17.9 billion euros and created a furor last June when, momentarily, it defaulted on repayments.
Ashoka Mody, a former IMF official who helped design its rescue of Ireland, said the one thing that should be keeping the Fund engaged in the Greek rescue is the risk of not being repaid.
But Mody, now a Princeton professor, doesn't favor that.
"It would be a good idea to disengage, because I'm not sure that the IMF has played a constructive role in Greece," he told AFP.
"It is now advocating for debt relief but its insistence on austerity has not really been helpful."