The European Central Bank’s Governing Council agreed to raise the cap on emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) that Greek banks can draw from the Greek central bank by about €600 million, a banking source told Reuters yesterday.

The increase takes the ELA ceiling to €69.4 billion.

In the meantime ECB policymaker Jens Weidmann, who is also chief of Germany’s Bundesbank, rejected Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis’s characterisation of ECB policy towards Athens as “asphyxiating towards our government”.

“You have to separate cause and effect,” Weidmann, replied when asked about Varoufakis’s comment. “We have rules that we have to stick with, and these rules are designed to safeguard eurozone monetary policy.”

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