If we're resorting to discussing the weather, it's clearly time to end this blog for the day.

Here's a summary:

• Germany's Bundestag has approved the plan to extend the European Financial Stability Facility, with Angela Merkel securing a large majority.

• Greek civil servants protested as the IMF/EU/ECB group returned to Athens....but talks still got underway, in a "positive" climate

• Italy's borrowing costs have hit a new record high

• US economy grew slightly faster than expected in last quarter

Tomorrow, it's Austria's turn to vote on the EFSF plan. See you then. Thanks for reading and having your say -- lots of good stuff below the line, as usual.

European stock markets have closed.

In London, there was more of a whimper than a bang. The FTSE 100 ended 20 points lower at 5196, down 0.4%.

Other indices did better. The German DAX closed 1% higher, Italy's MIB gained more than 2%, and the French Cac rose almost 1%.

David Jones, chief market strategist at IG Index, said it had been a rather uneventful day, despite the importance of the vote in the Bundestag. The shock appearance of a bright object in the September sky must take some of the blame...

Clearly the unseasonably hot weather has had an effect on energy levels amongst traders in London, as the FTSE 100 has struggled to find momentum in either direction. Germany's vote on extended powers for the bailout fund passed as expected this morning, generating little in the way of market reaction despite receiving slightly more support than expected. The afternoon brought slightly better-than-expected US jobless and GDP data, sparking some interest for markets heading into Wall Street. But concerns about a possible "hard landing" for the Chinese economy has weighed on mining stocks and ultimately led to a directionless session.

More reaction on the European debt crisis, this time from Arturo Bris, professor of finance at Swiss business school IMD.

Professor Bris argues that the EU needs to avoid a disorderly Greek default at any cost, otherwise Italy and Spain would inevitably follow.....

Even taking into account the massive financial implications, there would be a huge currency impact of a Greek default: the euro would plummet. Any importing country in Europe, especially any oil importing country, would suffer hugely. And which are these countries? Greece itself, Italy, Spain... So a Greek default would also trigger the default of bigger countries such as Spain and Italy.

Despite the protests organised by Greece's civil servants - who blocked off access to several government offices - The IMF/EU/ECB Troika have managed to make contact with senior Greek politicians.

We know this, because the Greek Finance minister just released this statement, saying the meeting had gone well:

The climate was positive and creative after the tough measures that were decided.

Other news from Greece. The stock market regulators has announced that the current ban on short-selling stocks will be extended until 9 December. It was due to expire on 9 October.

This comes a day after Italy and Spain extended their own bans on investors selling shares they don't own.

This morning Steven Maijoor, chairman of the European Securities and Markets Authority, said these bans will be lifted when market conditions return to normal. Until then, Europe doesn't want 'speculative traders' to profit by driving down bank shares with ill-informed rumours.

That's laudable, we guess. Except, research suggests that short-selling bans don't really work - and actually increase market volatility by restricting liquidity, and making it harder to tell what a share is really worth.

Over in New York, Wall Street is enjoying a good start to the trading day. The Dow Jones industrial average is up 137 points, or 1.25%, at 11150, having been as high as 11271 a little while ago.

The trigger isn't the German vote. Instead, fresh economic data has shown that the US economy grew slightly faster than expected in the second quarter of the year. There was also encouraging news on the US unemployment situation:

My colleague Nick Fletcher has more:

Signs of hope for the world's biggest economy came from the final revision of second quarter GDP, showing a rise of 1.3% compared to first estimates of 1% growth and expectations the figure would come in at 1.2%. The growth was helped by consumer spending growth and stronger than expected exports. At the same time weekly jobless claims also improved, falling from 428,000 in the previous week to 391,000 last week.

The London stock market is sliding deeper into the red, though. With 45 minutes to go, the FTSE 100 is down nearly 50 points at 5169. ....

Germany has again signalled its deep opposition to the proposal to boost the European rescue fund to multi-trilllion euro levels.

Economy minister Philipp Roesler (pictured here this morning) said just the German government remains implacably opposed to leveraging the euro zone's bailout fund (Reuters reports).

Under the plan floated over the weekend, the €440bn in the EFSF could be used as collateral in a "shock and awe" move that would raise its total firepower to €2 trillion, or possibly €3 trillion, depending which version you read.

German officials have repeatedly dismissed the plan this week. But, with most experts agreeing that a €440bn EFSF isn't big enough, something has to give...

Helen Pidd, our Berlin correspondent, has rounded up some of the early media reaction to Merkel's win.

On Spiegel Online, Roland Nelles looks at the winners from today's vote:



The beleaguered coalition suddenly seems sprightly, almost as if they've been doped. The Euro profits too: finally we can see a bit of order in this debt dog's breakfast. A way out of the crisis is visible. The euro bailout fund, with its billions of guarantees, is the first thought-through, democratically legitimised instrument for rescuing the bankrupt Euro countries.

But On stern.de Lutz Kinkel is less optimistic. He writes that many of Merkel's coalition MPs voted for the bill despite themselves:



Many of the shilly-shalliers, the fussers, thedoubters don't actually believe in Merkel's strategy. They voted yes while holding their noses because their main concern is keeping the coalition intact – and keeping their jobs.

Kinkel added that victory had bought the chancellor a bit of breathing space, but not at lot else:

She has to deliver, to show that the patient is slowly getting better, otherwise she will soon lose the support of her MPs. After Thursday's vote, two more follow: the decision about the second Greek rescue package and the vote on the permanent bailout facility, the ESM, next year.

Heather Stewart, the Observer's economics editor, warns that today's Bundestag vote will only help to buy Europe some time.

The plan agreed in July to expand the EFSF to €440bn has been "comprehensively overtaken by events," she says:

Financial markets have driven up the yields on Italian and Spanish bonds, despite frantic buying by the European Central Bank, the only institution with any firepower until the EFSF is re-booted. That suggests investors have little confidence that anything agreed so far would be enough to contain the shockwaves that would follow a Greek default. Meanwhile, Greece has drifted ever farther away from meeting the conditions laid down by the "troika" of the ECB, the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission, partly because its economy is contracting even more rapidly than feared. It now looks as though a deal will be done in the next few days to release the latest €8bn tranche of last year's bailout (which, remember, was meant to put Greece on a sustainable track), but behind the scenes there is a growing acceptance that the time has almost come to pull the plug. Even if the July deal sails through every other parliament, eurozone leaders need to come up with something much larger, more effective, and more like a promise to stand behind each other, come what may. Politically, that may be a much harder sell, but the fractious mood at the IMF meetings in Washington last week showed that as the market turbulence takes its toll, the rest of the world is running out of patience.

Only in Greece.... Officials from the IMF, the ECB and the EU are arriving in Athens to assess whether to hand over the €8bn loan to save the Greek economy from meltdown.

There's a problem, though - Greek government officials have blocked the doors of several government ministries and won't let them in.

Helena Smith, our correspondent in Athens, has the full story:

In a highly coordinated counter–attack primed to cause maximum embarrassment for officials in Athens, irate civil servants took over the premises of major ministries in a symbolic show of protest against the auditors' presence in the capital. Blocking the entrance to the finance ministry hundreds of protestors shouting "take your bailout and leave" attempted to prevent the finance minister Evangelos Venizelos meeting the newly-arrived inspectors. "We are sending a loud message to the government and the European Union that we've reached our limits, that it is the workers in our country and especially workers in the public domain who have carried the burden [of cost-cutting policies]," said Kostas Tsikrikas, president of ADEDY, the union of public sector employees. After almost two years of relentless austerity the purchasing power of civil servants had been halved, he said. The union which represents some 800,000 civil servants said protestors would march on parliament at 6PM local time (4 PM BST). "Total losses after the new 20 percent cut envisaged in the new pay scale [for public sector employees] exceed 50 percent," said Tsikrikas. "The measures that are being enforced are unfair and ineffective as all they do is lead to an increase in unemployment and deeper recession." Greek civil servant wages were among the lowest in the OECD and it was "a myth" that they were draining the public sector, he added. It is becoming increasingly hard to ignore the fact that society's most vulnerable are being hit hardest by the measures that have been meted out by the EU and IMF to reinvigorate the Greek economy.

ADEDY has some frightening figures: over 300,000 small and medium sized enterprises have closed it says since the debt crisis erupted in Athens in late 2009. By the end of the year the union projects that unemployment will have hit 1.5 million – one person in every household.

With living standards falling sharply, a quarter of the Greek population now lives under the poverty line.

Back in Germany, one of the coalition MPs who rebelled against Angela Merkel has been discussing the vote.

CDU lawmaker Wolfgang Bosbach, one of 10 conservative MPs to vote against the expansion of the eurozone bailout fund, said there had been an awful amount of arm-twisting behind the scenes.

"In 40 years in parliament I have never experienced anything like it. It got really personal," he told Reuters.

The opposition-controlled upper chamber, the Bundesrat, is due to vote on the EFSF deal on Friday and is expected to pass it. The main opposition parties, the Social Democrats and the Greens, support the changes to the fund.

Speaking of Italy, we should not ignore the fact that today is Silvio Berlusconi's 75th birthday. Many happy returns, Silvio!

Except, as the Associated Press argues, he may not be in the mood to celebrate:

Italy risks being engulfed in Europe's debt crisis, while Berlusconi himself faces daily calls for his resignation. And then there are his legal woes: four trials, the threat of more and his sex life splashed on newspaper front pages daily. Bad news and personal embarrassments are piling up for the billionaire businessman-turned-politician, who can no longer count on allies to help him through the tough times. The latest internal government feud erupted on the eve of his birthday, with ministers fighting over who should be Italy's next central bank chief.

Mario Draghi, the current head of the Bank of Italy, is moving from eurocrisis frying pan to fire this autumn when he replaces Jean-Claude Trichet as head of the European Central Bank.

It appears that Berlusconi wants Fabrizio Saccomanni, the current deputy governor of the central bank, to replace Draghi. His finance minister Giulio Tremonti, though, is backing Vittorio Grilli, the director of the Italian Treasury.

Relations between Berlusconi and Tremonti have become increasingly strained as the crisis has deepened - if they really fall out, Italy's fiscal consolidation plan could be in real trouble....

Alex Lawson, financial risk manager at Moneycorp, says the record high interest rates paid by Italy this morning has dampened the excitement over the German yes vote:

This morning's approval by German parliament of the expansion of the EFSF cleared another hurdle on the way to solving Europe's debt woes. Although it is really only another temporary measure, the passing of the vote allows Chancellor Merkel to turn her attention to proposals to bring forward the implementation of the permanent European Stability Mechanism – an important step in dealing with the crisis. The size of the majority in favour of the measure and the strong support gained from opposition parties is also cause for cautious optimism. The reaction of the euro has been tempered by the spike in borrowing costs for Italy at this morning's debt auction, but the single currency should end the week on a positive note.

Raoul Ruparel, economic analyst at Open Europe, tells us that Angela Merkel did a good job of managing expectations in the run-up to today's vote. However, the crisis now at a more "critical stage" than in late July when the EFSF expansion was agreed:

In particular, Merkel needs to decide whether to revise the complex and flawed second Greek bailout, which could put her directly at odds with some of Europe's largest financial institutions.



Furthermore, a key battle will be fought over whether Germany can accept an expanded role for the ECB, particularly through a larger bond buying programme, something which would finally put pay to the view that the ECB is the genuine successor to the Bundesbank. There are also growing divisions in the eurozone over whether to leverage the EFSF to increase its firepower – a debate which Germany will ultimately decide. Clearly, Merkel's tough choices are far from over with the passage of this vote.

The European Union has welcomed the German Yes vote, telling reporters in Brussels that it is confident that the ratification of the bailout plan will be agreed by mid-October.

Here's a great picture from the Bundestag, of Angela Merkel literally surrounded by supporters as the vote took place.

We're hearing that 315 members of the coalition voted in favour. The magic number was 311 - the amount of support Merkel needed to win the vote without a helping hand from the opposition.

So, a triumph for Angela?

She must be delighted to have held her coalition together, and certainly looks happier than at the start of the debate.

Kathrin Vogler, also from the Left party, has explained that she opposed the EFSF expansion because, in her view, it damages the European union and helps the banks at the expense of EU citizens.

Vogler told the Bundestag that she voted against the EFSF bill despite describing herself as a "staunch European" who lives near the Dutch border. She labelled the EFSF "unsocial, economically counterproductive and a further step towards the split of Europe".

She also said the conditions imposed on Greece were "counterproductive" and would lead to a further weakening of its economy, with Greek unions fearing an unemployment rate of 26%. "The EFSF is a bailout fund for the banks, not for the people," she concluded.

After the vote concluded, most MPs left the chamber - leaving the Left party to deliver a series of speeches attacking the EFSF expansion, to enthusiastic applause from their own ranks.

In the City, the German "Yes" vote had little impact, with the FTSE 100 is now down 20 points (or 0.4%) at 5195. The German Dax is performing better, up around 0.5%.

Louise Cooper of BGC Partners believes the first "green shoots" of a workable solution to the Eurozone fiscal crisis may now be appearing. But she too agrees that the EFSF will need to be reworked quickly if Europe is to really get a grip on the crisis:

As expected the German parliament has voted through the EFSF this morning. However this is just a step in a very long journey to an unknown (as yet) destination. Seven more countries need to vote on this and the Slovakia vote is not due until the end of October. The EFSF is now "so last season" - out of date already.

The Open Europe think tank agrees that this is a "more comfortable majority for Merkel than many had expected" but cautions that we need to see the voting breakdown to understand the full story.

As we said at 11.22am It looks like more of the No votes came from the Left party (the former Communist party), which has 76 MPs.

Sony Kapoor, managing director of the Re-Define economic think tank, is encouraged that the German government achieved such a large majority. However, he argues that much more needs to be done to fix the debt crisis.

Kappor argues that the EFSF's terms will need to be changed again soon, so it can give direct support to Europe's banks. He also said that German politicians must take some of the blame for the level of public opposition to expanding the EFSF:

The overwhelming majority in the Bundestag is a good sign and will hopefully mark a step change in German commitment to bringing the spiralling crisis under control. Many of the sensible changes approved today had already been proposed last year were but unfortunately rejected. It's good the Bundestag has approved these but it is too little too late. The inability to aid troubled banks without first lending to the sovereign is seriously problematic as this may stop the EFSF from being able to support weak banks in weak member states, exactly the group that most need external support. This was necessary, but is far from sufficient. For things to improve, a whole host of things need to go right but even a single mis-step could worsen the crisis even more. German leaders are directly responsible for how negatively the public feels about today's vote on the EFSF. The cheap 'lazy Greeks' shots that seemed politically expedient last year have now come back to haunt them.

Debate is continuing in the Bundestag, with MPs explaining their votes.

So far, only lawmakers from the opposition Left party have set out why they opposed the legislation.

Sevim Dagdalen says she voted against the EFSF deal. She accused the German government of pandering to banks, speculators, the "financial mafia".

She added she sympathised with the Greeks who are protesting against their government's harsh austerity measures, as well as the Portuguese. She attacked a "Europe that is unsocial and unfair".

Here's the voting details:

In favour: 523 MPs

Against: 85

Abstentions: 3

So, a huge majority for Angela Merkel. We'll get the full breakdown of who voted, and whether many of the coalition government rebelled, soon.

Breaking news - the Bundestag has officially approved the expansion of the EFSF.

Merkel needs a convincing majority to be credible.

If she gets more than 19 objections on her own side (i.e. the conservative CDU/CSU - Liberal FDP coalition), her coalition government could come under pressure to hold new elections.

While German MPs vote, we can look quickly at Italy, which just paid a record high interest rate for its ten-year bonds.

In an auction this morning, Italy sold €6.9bn of sovereign debt, of varying maturity. The yield, or interest rate, on its ten-year bonds hit 5.86%, up from 5.22%.

That is the highest rate for Italian 10-year bonds since the euro was introduced. One economist described it as "eye-wateringly high", but on the positive side, at least the auction wasn't undersubscribed.....

OK, the debate in the Bundestag has wound up...and voting in starting now.

It will probably take around 30 minutes for the votes to be counted.

So much for German punctuality. We were expecting the EFSF vote at 10.30 London time, but a number of MPs have been having their say.

Norbert Barthle of the conservative CDU closed the debate in Germany's Bundestag, asking parliamentarians to vote for the changes to the eurozone bailout fund "with a big majority'.

Wolfgang Schäuble has also clashed with his predecessor as finance minister, the social democrat Peer Steinbrück.

My colleague David Gow says such disputes are inevitable, as Steinbrück will probably lead the SPD general election campaign in 2013.

But, David argues:



The political skirmishes overshadow the most salient fact: government and opposition accept that the EFSF will be inadequate and will require radical enhancement virtually as soon as it's approved. Schäuble last weekend denounced Tim Geithner, US treasury secretary, for demanding a huge increase in the EFSF's €440bn firepower and he repeated this today: "It won't be increased; there's no question about that." BUT: very soon, he and Merkel will be preparing the way for expanding the guarantees or insurance the EFSF will offer for creditor countries and even talking about an EMF [a European version of the International Monetary Fund] Everybody in German politics knows the current mechanisms are worse than useless if, say, Spain or Italy goes down the path towards default...

Wolfgang Schäuble went on to warn that Europe is in an "extraordinarily difficult situation," and that nervousness in financial markets could spread to the real economy.

Germany's finance minister stressed that the country must remain "an anchor of stability in Europe".

Turning to Greece, he reiterated that it will only get the next tranche of bailout money if conditions from the troika - the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund - are met. A decision is expected on 13 October.

Carsten Schneider, of the opposition Social Democrats, welcomed the proposed changes to the EFSF, but said they came one year too late.

More details from the Bundestag debate. Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany's finance minister, has attempted to reassure MPs by saying any speculation about further changes to the EFSF is inappropriate. "Indecent", in fact.

Schäuble told parliament:

We should not ask ourselves what is coming next and who intends this and that. That either increases insecurity or it is not serious and it is in truth even indecent.

Last weekend, reports broke that a €2trn rescue deal was being put together - including a major expansion of the EFSF. This has since been denied by several governments.

Amid many questions about whether there were plans to leverage the fund, Schäuble said the Bundestag was voting on whether to boost the German contribution to the eurozone bailout fund, and after that "we will see".

"Therefore any speculation and [causing] insecurity is indecent," he said.

Schäuble also promised lawmakers that all changes to the fund would have to be approved by parliament.

The euro has been rallying in the currency markets this morning, gaining one and a half cents against the US dollar to $1.3677. It was as low as $1.3361 on Monday.

Jane Foley, senior currency strategist at Rabobank, warned that this recovery "appears to be built on shaky ground":

It remains the case that this week's rally in the Euro has been built largely on optimism rather than any concrete change in the Eurozone's circumstances. Headlines continue to make clear that Eurozone policy makers are a long way from finding consensus on issues surrounding the further development of the EFSF and the issue of more fiscal integration within the region. Germany's Finance Minister this morning has reiterated the line that Germany is " taking seriously our responsibility to protect the EUR" but has also distanced himself from an inference that may have been drawn from previous remarks regarding the potential to leverage or expand the EFSF.

Jürgen Trittin, head of the Green party faction in the Bundestag, has stressed that Germany must tackle weak demand - Europe's biggest economy exports far more to its neighbours than it imports - to help overcome the eurozone crisis.

He also used the opportunity to attack Angela Merkel, saying her "zigzag course had worsened the crisis".

The EFSF expansion must be approved by national parliaments before it comes into law. Some have already given the green light (most recently Finland, on Wednesday). Austria votes on Friday, but some countries won't give their verdict until next month.

This interactive (by my colleague Paddy Allen) shows the state of play.

A quick reminder about what the German vote is all about. Under the rescue plan agreed on 21 July, the European financial stability facility (EFSF) will be expanded to €440bn. It will also be given the power to make 'precautionary' loans to eurozone companies who are struggling to borrow from the financial markets, and also buy up sovereign debt under certain circumstances.

In practice, this will increase Germany's contribution to the bailout fund from €123bn to €211bn. Polling suggests that three-quarters of Germans oppose enlarging the EFSF.

Rainer Brüderle went on to attack Peer Steinbrück, of the opposition Social Democrats (who spoke earlier in the debate) over his support for the introduction of eurobonds.

Eurobonds, Brüderle says, would make Germany responsible for debts in the rest of Europe - and lead to the "dispossession of large parts of the German population".

Merkel has repeatedly reiterated her opposition to the introduction of eurobonds - despite the European Central Bank pushing for their introduction.

Back in the Bundestag, Rainer Brüderle, leader of the FDP parliamentary group, the Liberals (part of Merkel's coalition government), stresses the need to stabilise the eurozone. He says:

When money goes bad, everything goes bad. Germany experienced this in its history - from hyperinflation and mass poverty to war.

Before the debate, he told German radio that the centre-right coalition would not have to rely on opposition support to get the motion on the EFSF through. If so, that would be a significant boost to Merkel's authority.

While the debate continues in the Bundestag, my colleague Patrick Wintour has the inside line on Nick Clegg's speech in Warsaw this afternoon.

The deputy MP (and former MEP) won't be pulling many punches - warning Europe's leaders that the European Union could be "torn apart" if the push for closer integration leaves Britain in the cold:

From Patrick:



Clegg will warn of serious implications if Britain's role is downgraded by greater integration by eurozone countries. He will say: "We cannot accept arrangements that would privilege the eurozone as a decision-making body over the European council. That is the surest way to rupture our union, undermining the huge strides that have been taken to secure cooperation between us, allowing walls to spring up even though we spent years knocking them down. "The problem is if the economic crisis deepens the fault lines between our nations … if it tears us apart."

Peer Steinbrück of the opposition Social Democrat (SPD) party, a former German finance minister, has also harked back to the second world war in an effort to underline the importance of the vote to Germany.

Steinbrück reminded the Bundestag about the origins of the European Union after the war, and how the union has benefited Germany.

He says the changes to the EFSF are "necessary steps to stabilise the eurozone - but they won't be enough". Greece will need an economic aid programme to become more competitive, he adds later.

Here's a picture from the German parliament this morning

It shows economy minister Philipp Roesler and chancellor Angela Merkel waiting for the Bundestag debate to begin, looking stern and resolute.

Volker Kauder, the head of Merkel's conservative CDU/CSU parliamentary group, has opened the EFSF debate.

Kauder rejects suggestions that the bill on the expansion of the eurozone's bailout fund, EFSF, has been rushed, saying everyone had a chance to make their voice heard. He stresses the importance of this vote, and even mentions the second world war to drum home his message that a peaceful, prosperous Europe is needed.

This is about more than expanding the EFSF. It's about our future, jobs, perspectives for a young generation. It's not about Greece, payments to Greece, but creating a protective shield for those who need it, to prevent contagion... It's in our German national interest.

As forecast, shares have fallen back in early trading. The FTSE 100 dropped 40 points, or 0.7%, at the open - with all the major European indexes falling by a similar amount.

So, traders will probably be marking time while they await events in the Bundestag.

The German debate is just starting.

The Bundestag looks certain to approve enhanced powers for the eurozone's bailout fund on Thursday, but Angela Merkel's credibility is at stake. Will she get a convincing majority within her own coalition of Christian Democrats and Liberals - or will she scrape through with the votes of the main opposition parties, the Social Democrats and Greens?

While most of Merkel's own CDU party are toeing the party line, Horst Seehofer, the leader of its sister faction, the Bavarian CSU, is making life difficult for her. He recently disagreed with her contention that Europe would fail if the euro failed. "I don't see the connection," he stated bluntly.

As far as the CDU goes, its chief whip, Peter Altmeier, is confident. "As a chief whip, I have to be optimistic, but so far we have managed to win every single struggle in parliament, every single vote and that is going to happen again this Thursday," he told the BBC on Wednesday.

You can watch the German debate live here

City traders believe the stock markets will lose ground again this morning, at least until the German vote on the EFSF has been concluded. Last night the Dow Jones index fell 1.6%, after the FTSE 100 has shed 76 points.

Chris Weston of IG Markets warned that:

In what is becoming an increasingly common theme, investor sentiment faltered once again yesterday over the outlook for successfully navigating the eurozone debt crisis.

Here's a breakdown of some of the key timings today:

• The Bundestag will start debating the EFSF expansion at 9am CET (8am BST)

• Voting is expected to begin at 11am CET (10am BST)

• The EU summit in Warsaw is taking place all day

• Eurozone consumer confidence data is released at 11am CET (10am BST)

• Revised US second-quarter GDP is released at 8.30am EST (1.30BST)

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the European debt crisis. Later this morning, the German Bundestag will vote on the proposal to enlarge and extend the eurozone rescue packaga.

Angela Merkel is likely to win the vote, but may lose the support of some members of her own coalition.

Elsewhere, Nick Clegg will address the EU summit in Warsaw. The deputy prime minister is expected to warn that the European Union could fragment if its members fail to work together to resolve the situation.

More strikes are expected in Greece, where international inspectors will begin to assess whether George Papandreou's administration has done enough to earn the next €8bn portion of its bailout fund.