–Adds quotes, details, to story filed at 14:09 GMT

BERLIN (MNI) – International Monetary Fund Managing Director
Dominique Strauss-Kahn on Wednesday declined to confirm reports that the
amount of aid needed to salvage Greece was now up to E120 billion over
the next three years and that Germany’s share of it was up to E25
billion over that same period.

German lawmakers had cited these numbers earlier today after
leaving a meeting with Strauss-Kahn and ECB President Jean-Claude
Trichet in Berlin.

“I can give no figures today because they are not decided yet,”
Strauss-Kahn said at a press conference after the meeting.

Both Strauss-Kahn and Trichet, who also attended the press
conference, said that aid for Greece needed to be activated quickly once
the negotiations on a Greek budget consolidation program are finished.

“In situations which are demanding, the rapidity of the decisions
are essential based on a courageous program that would work over time on
a multi-year basis,” Trichet said.

He said he assumed that the negotiations with Greece will be
finished “in a few days, by the end of the week.”

Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said his country
would take the necessary decision to approve its share of aid for Greece
“as soon as possible.” He said the requisite bill could be in the hands
of German parliament as soon as next Monday and it could be passed by
the end of next week.

Strauss-Kahn said he was confident that the Greek problem can be
solved, if everyone works together and quickly enough.

He conceded that what the Greek government and people are embarking
on now is “difficult” and “it cannot be done without being painful, but
the international community is here to try to help” by providing
resources and advice for the country, to help it return to normalcy.

The troubled southern Mediterranean country will, however, not
return to normal life quickly, Strauss-Kahn said. It will “take time.”

More than the economic situation of the Eurozone is at stake in the
Greek crisis, which is why “we need to act swiftly and strongly,” the
IMF chief urged.

Since the IMF would be making loans to the Hellenic Republic and
not grants, Strauss-Kahn noted that, “we need Greece to come back on
track as rapidly as possible.”

“We need to start this program of help as soon as possible…the
faster the better,” he pleaded.

“Every day that is lost is a day in which the situation gets worse
and worse not only in Greece, but in the European Union, and it can even
have consequences far, far away,” he warned.

Still, near the end of the press conference, Strauss-Kahn conceded
that there was no way to be sure that Greece would accept the conditions
attached to a possible IMF loan.

Strauss-Kahn echoed comments made moments earlier in the same press
conference by ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet, who underlined that it
“is extremely important that we have negotiations taking place now in
Athens” with Greece, the IMF and the European Commission.

“The working assumption is that we will have an end of these
negotiations within a few days,” Trichet said.

And, “I am making the working assumption that we will have a very
good end of these negotiations. It depends on us and the government of
Greece.”

Trichet also praised the “fast procedures” of the German
parliament, noting that it is “extremely important” that any decision
taken on Greece be made “extremely rapidly.”

He also said that the euro is a very solid currency.

–Berlin bureau, +49-30-226-20580; twidder@marketnews.com

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