The IMF is being lined up to be the bad guys which suits the EZ politicians immensely.

The IMF decision to pull back their team to Washington will have acted as an ice-cold shower to Tsipras, EU officials and politicians who keep feeding us pie-in-the-sky nonsense about the umpteenth imminent deal, causing the Athens bourse to go up and down like the proverbial piece of 'ladies'' underwear.  Greece's highest court today decided that the 2012 agreement to cut pensions has been illegal. Any new promise on pension reforms is likely to suffer the same fate in the future, so isn't worth the paper they are written on.  I hope that the drastic IMF action will either lead to a complete capitulation by Greece or even better an imminent exit from the Eurozone and the EU.

PS: The artificial bonhomie of these contestants is nauseating. I'd rather have sour-faced, business-like Schaeuble than the conglomeration of grinning fauns.

Debt-management issues seen solely through economist eyes, and dealt with, solely in the economic realm, empowers finance [Schaubles] ministers to influence policy...that's all.

Political [Merkel] leaders are there to heed that advice or snub it - depends entirely on which way the political winds blow.  So Schaubles is being snubbed, sidelined, shoved up a siding - political wind shifted.