With Greece facing an interest repayment of €200 million to the IMF today, Greece and its international creditors remained locked in discussions in Brussels yesterday to try

to reach agreement on a revised bailout deal for the stricken country.

One week after Alexis Tsipras sidelined finance minister Yanis Varoufakis from the Athens' negotiating team, officials have reported some progress, but talk of an early agreement over the weekend proved to be nothing more than wishful thinking.

Yesterday Greek officials laid the blame at the door of the group of international lenders, blaming the institutions formerly known as the troika for demanding too many red lines.

Divisions

At the same time divisions appear to be emerging within the group of lenders themselves.

Reports emerged yesterday that the IMF has requesting euro zone lenders to agree to some form of Greek debt writedown to compensate for any concession given regarding Greece’s primary surplus target.

With the eurogroup of finance ministers, whose countries are Greece’s main creditors, staunchly opposed to any concession on debt repayments, the issue could prove divisive and has already been seized upon by officials in Athens as evidence that the continuing stand-off is a result of inter-troika disputes rather than the fault of Greek negotiators.

German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble said no such comment had been made.

Given a disimproving economic situation, IMF official Poul Thomsen reportedly told the ministers the fund could withhold its contribution to the outstanding €7.2 billion credit tranche for Greece.

It was reported yesterday that Mr Thomsen had mentioned at the meeting a debt writedown as one of several options.

“It’s not surprising that there’s a lot of speculation ahead of eurogroup meetings,” said Dr Schäuble, “but naturally Mr Thomsen didn’t make this remark.”

Tension between the EU and the IMF on Greece is nothing new.

Most notably, the Washington-based fund pushed for greater private sector involvement during the height of the Greek crisis and, in a damning report on the Greek crisis published in June 2013, said that Greek debt should have been restructured in 2010, blaming EU lenders.

Yesterday EU commissioner Pierre Moscovici confirmed that debt issues "can only be discussed after we have agreed a reform programme", a statement that is unlikely to be welcomed by the IMF.

Whether some form of debt renegotiation may be countenanced by the eurogroup once a revised bailout package is agreed is one thing. Any significant debt writedown – still the aim of the Syriza-led government – is highly unlikely.

Economic forecasts published by the European Commission yesterday may also add to Greece’s woes.

The commission’s spring economic forecast slashed growth forecasts for Greece, with the economy now expected to grow by 0.5 per cent this year, compared to a growth rate of 2.5 per cent predicted just three months ago.

There was also bad news for Greece on its projected debt levels. Having projected Greek debt would fall from 176.2 per cent of GDP to 170.2 per cent this year, the European Commission now expected Greece’s debt to GDP ratio to rise to 180.2 per cent in 2015.

While the commission, somewhat optimistically, still predicts growth of 2.9 per cent next year in Greece, Mr Moscovici said this depended on the outcome of the bailout talks.

While the country is likely to cobble together the money together to meet its €200 million repayment to the IMF today, a further €750 million or so is due next Tuesday, a day after the May 11th eurogroup meeting in Brussels.

Scepticism

Mr Schäuble yesterday expressed scepticism about whether a deal would be agreed before Greece will be able to strike a deal with international creditors in the next few days on vital financial aid.

“I’m somewhat sceptical whether that’ll be possible by Monday. But I’m not ruling it out,” Mr Schäuble said.

The European Central Bank is also due to assess its provision of emergency liquidity assistance to Greece at today's governing council meeting in Frankfurt, with Greek deputy prime minister Yannis Dragasakis meeting ECB president Mario Draghi yesterday ahead of the meeting.