Spain has moved closer to becoming the fourth country in Europe to receive an international bailout as the eurozone crisis escalates.

It followed intense speculation yesterday that Spain would make the request during a crunch eurozone finance ministers' conference call later today.

However, the country's politicians gave themselves more time to find an alternative yesterday, announcing no decision would be taken over the weekend.

The Spanish Government said it would wait until it had received a status report from the International Monetary Fund, due on Monday, and another from independent auditors, due by June 21 at the latest.

Officials also said that no decision had yet been taken on a bailout and when asked about reports of a conference call said "no meeting is planned" .

However, they refused to rule out some kind of contact between the eurozone's political leaders over the weekend.

Spain issued an SOS plea last week, warning that its banks were finding it very difficult to borrow money.

The county is still suffering the aftershocks of the catastrophic collapse of its overheated property sector.

If Spain asks for a bailout it would become the fourth such rescue in the 17-member eurozone, following similar help for Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

Estimates of the cost of any aid to its banking sector range as high as 100 billion euro (£80bn).

The country is also the eurozone's fourth largest economy and there are fears that unless its problems are stemmed quickly and permanently they could spread to other struggling large nations such as Italy and France.

There are also fears that Spain itself could suffer another setback if the markets are spooked by a second inclusive election result in Greece next week.

Spain's Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria yesterday said no decision had been taken on a potential bailout.

"Once the estimates of the numbers are known with regard to what the financial sector might need, the government will state its position," she said.

"But in any case, I am telling you that no decision has been made either way."

Many economists believe that contagion is most likely to spread to Italy, which has the second-highest debt load in the eurozone after Greece.

EU leaders will discuss the growing crisis at a summit in Brussels at the end of this month.