Eurozone members have made a commitment to providing up to €30bn in loans to Greece over the next year to help stave off a debt crisis that has roiled financial markets and posed the most serious challenge to the euro in its history.

Those funds were agreed during an extraordinary teleconference of eurozone finance ministers on Sunday and would be supplemented by contributions from the International Monetary Fund that could yield an additional €15bn (£13.2bn, $20.2bn) according to European officials.

The rates charged to Athens would be around 5 per cent for a three-year fixed loan - above the IMF's standard lending rate but below those currently demanded by jittery investors. Two-year Greek bonds were last week trading at 7.45 per cent.