BBC News
June 16, 2011
The Greek government might be living on borrowed time, but European finance ministers have just borrowed a bit more. As I said on the Today programme this morning, the IMF has blinked in the battle over how - and when - to agree a second European rescue package for Greece.
Assuming that some form of Greek government emerges out of the political discussions now under way in Athens, it is now almost certain that Greece will get the official money it needs to stay above water a few more weeks, notably the next tranche of last year's EU-IMF bailout.
All the eurozone ministers have to do is agree in principle to fill the funding gap in the Greek economic programme, which they will now do on Sunday.
The trouble is, they have always agreed on the principle: indeed, the only thing that France, Germany and the ECB can agree is that a second support programme for Greece is essential. Rightly or wrongly, they are united in the belief that letting Greece go it alone would be a catastrophe - for Greece and for the eurozone.
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