Eurozone leaders will hold an emergency summit on Monday to try to avert a Greek default after bank withdrawals accelerated and government revenue slumped as Athens and its international creditors remain deadlocked over a debt deal.

Finance ministers of the 19-nation currency bloc failed to make any breakthrough on a cash-for-reforms agreement at talks in Luxembourg yesterday, just 12 days before Greece must make a crucial debt repayment to the International Monetary Fund.

“Regrettably... too little progress has been made. No agreement is in sight,” Jeroen Dijsselbloem, chairman of the Eurogroup, told a news conference. Ministers sent a strong signal that it is up to Greece to make new proposals, he said.

Speaking to Times of Malta at the end of the meeting, Finance Minister Edward Scicluna said the doors for debate were still open.

Asked whether he felt that Greece was one step closer to exiting the euro zone, Prof. Scicluna said no, but added that the country seemed to be playing a game of brinkmanship and was ready to take the matter to the very end, at the cost of the situation in Greece deteriorating further.

He said it was his impression, however, that it did not seem that the Greeks were at all prepared to leave the euro zone.

European Council President Donald Tusk said he had summoned heads of state and government of the euro area to meet in Brussels at 1700 GMT on Monday.

“It is time to urgently discuss the situation of Greece at the highest political level,” Tusk said.

German and EU officials dismissed a German newspaper report that the creditors were preparing a final offer to extend Greece’s bailout programme until the end of the year without IMF involvement. Dijsselbloem said if there was a last-minute deal next week, there would have to be some extension of the current bailout to allow time for disbursement.

Greek savers pulled out some two billion euros between Monday and Wednesday after weekend negotiations collapsed in Brussels, senior banking sources said.

That is double the amount that the European Central Bank granted Greek banks in extra emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) this week.

The IMF dashed any hope that Athens could avert default if it fails to repay a €1.6 billion loan by the end of June, piling pressure on Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who shows no sign of yielding to the lenders.

If deposit flight continues to outpace ELA, it could force Greece to impose capital controls to ration cash withdrawals. The two billion euros taken out in just three days represent about 1.5 per cent of the total household and corporate deposits of €133.6 billion held by Greek banks as of end-April.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.