Over in Greece, it appears that the International Monetary fund will finally sign up to the economic adjustment programme keeping debt-striken Greece afloat. Helena Smith reports from Athens:

“It seems to me that yes, finally (the IMF will provide funding to Greece),” he said. “We have to congratulate Christine Lagarde that she managed to convince the IMF. This amount is not important, (but) it is really symbolic. Technically the IMF must be on board.”

As financial rows go, it was one of the longest, most ill-kept secrets of all times. But now it seems the spat between the EU and IMF over how to deal with debt-stricken Greece finally has been put to rest with the latter agreeing to participate in the country’s latest bailout programme. Attending the EBRD’s annual meeting in Nicosia, Slovakia’s ever-loquacious finance minister Peter Kazimir said that, thanks to the Washington-based organisation’s managing director Christine Lagarde, the IMF board had decided to join the programme.

Germany had argued that without the IMF actively monitoring the programme, it would have trouble convincing the Bundestag to approve of further disbursement of loans. The IMF had countered that it would not sign up to the €86bn programme – the third since Greece’s near-economic implosion in late 2009 – until Athens’ staggering debt load was made sustainable. At 180% of GDP, the debt pile is by far the highest in the EU with the IMF saying that longer grace periods and maturity extensions are only likely to throw the problem into the long grass.

But analysts now believe there are signs euro area finance ministers will revise Greece’s post-programme primary surplus in its debt sustainability analysis which would pay the way to minimal debt relief in 2018 – allowing the IMF to come on board either at the next May 22 eurogroup meeting or by mid June at the latest.

That, in turn, would allow emergency loans to be drawn down from the programme so that a fresh Greek crisis is avoided in July when Athens must honour debt repayments of over €7bn mostly to the ECB.