Greece fends off ECB reckoning with European progress report

Brussels

GREECE handed the European Central Bank (ECB) an excuse to maintain the life support for its financial system by persuading its sceptical German-led creditors that it's serious about delivering the policies needed to escape a default.

Less than three weeks after a Greek aid meeting broke up in taunts and acrimony, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis assured euro-area governments that his country is aiming to strike a bargain to win the final instalments of its 240 billion-euro (S$361 billion) aid programme.

"We are making faster pr…