Brussels: Greece lurched deeper into crisis today as European finance ministers prepared to consider a request for new loans in a last-ditch effort to keep the country in the eurozone after it defaulted on a key payment and a bailout keeping its economy afloat expired.

Cash-strapped Greece became the first developed country to default on the International Monetary Fund after missing a 1.5 billion euro (USD 1.7 billion) payment yesterday, as efforts to find a compromise with its EU lenders came to naught.