Germany is pushing for private holders of Greek debt to participate in any new aid package for Greece, a Finance Ministry spokesman said yesterday.

Martin Kotthaus said Berlin had “strong expectations” regarding the issue, which has pit Berlin against the European Central Bank, which warns that forcing private investors to take part could devastate Greece’s banking system.

But “if the public sector gives more” than the €110 billion already agreed upon, “it is clear that private creditors must participate” as well, Mr Kotthaus told a press conference.

While it was not clear what form of participation would be appropriate in Berlin’s view, an often-cited possibility would be for holders of Greek debt to simply roll over, or renew, bonds when they came due.

This so-called “re-profiling” option would give Athens time to come up with the funds, if it can turn an economy now in recession around and begin posting primary surpluses.

Those are Budget surpluses that do not include net interest payments on its debt.

Greece is now estimated to face a financing gap of around €60 billion to €70 billion in 2012-13, when the current EU-IMF loan begins to wind down, as it is unlikely that Athens will be able to refinance its debt on the markets as initially planned.

The German Finance Ministry spokesman explained that for Berlin to agree to more aid, three conditions must be fulfilled.

The first was “additional measures on Greece’s part,” in particular regarding fiscal policies, along with a “very concrete, tangible and intelligible plan” to privatise state-owned assets.

Thirdly, “it is important that the private sector assumes its responsibility,” the Finance Ministry spokesman stressed, though he added: “Under what form, I cannot say yet.”

On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that German authorities might be willing to forego their insistence that private investors be required to take part in a new programme to tackle the debt crisis.

That raised expectations on financial markets that some sort of agreement could be near at hand.

Mr Kotthaus also suggested that the International Monetary Fund would be expected to take part in a second Greek rescue, after already contributing to the first.

“It’s a common programme,” he said, “and I am working on the principle that it will be pursued in a common manner.”