Global financiers at the IMF are increasingly unwilling to fund endless bailouts for the eurozone's most troubled country, passing more of the burden onto the EU – at a time when Germany does not want to keep sending cash to Athens.

The assessment opens up a fresh split with Europe over how to handle Greece's massive public debts, as the IMF called on Europe to provide "significant debt relief" to Greece – despite Greece's EU creditors ruling out any further relief before the current rescue programme expires in 2018.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Eurogroup President repeated that position on Tuesday, saying there would be no Greek debt forgiveness and dismissing the IMF assessment of Greece's growth prospects as overly pessimistic.

"It's surprising because Greece is already doing better than that report describes," said Mr Dijsselbloem, who chairs meetings of eurozone finance ministers, adding that Greece was on track for a "pretty good recovery at the moment".