Eurozone agrees 150-bn-euro IMF bailout boost

The 17-nation eurozone agreed Monday to lend 150 billion euros ($195 billion) to the International Monetary Fund for use in stabilising the euro currency area, a eurozone governmental source said. "There is an agreement on a sum of 150 billion euros for the eurozone countries," the source told AFP. The source said the aim was still to reach the 200 billion euros target set by EU leaders at a December 9 summit, despite a British refusal to stump up its roughly 30-billion-euro share based on IMF quotas. The other European Union countries "are to take up their positions," the source said, but they had already "implicitly" agreed to reach the target designed to leverage a funding boost from other G20 states. The source said the EU -- all 27 of which took part in a three-and-a-half-hour conference call on Monday -- "will reach the 200 billion (euros and are) ... progressing towards the 200 billion, that is clear." During the conference call, Britain's finance minister George Osborne set down clear conditions for any eventual aid, a London government official said, adding that the British Treasury "will not contribute to anything that is only available to eurozone countries." The British government source added: "Nor will we participate in an increase in IMF resources that only comes from EU countries without the participation of other G20 countries" outside the EU.