Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos held an emergency meeting with political allies yesterday after hours of “superhuman” negotiations with EU-IMF bailout auditors failed to produce a rescue deal.

George Papandreou, Antonis Samaras and George Karatzaferis the leaders of the socialist, conservative and far-right parties backing the government — still have objections to new austerity measures demanded by Greece’s creditors.

Athens has been in talks with the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank – known as the ‘troika’ here – on further action needed to unlock a new eurozone rescue deal worth €130 billion pending since October.

Pressure is also high for an agreement with private lenders to wipe out part of the 350-billion-euro Greek debt, as Athens faces loan repayments of €14.4 billion on March 20.

“I come with the hope that I will not have to repeat what former German chancellor (Helmut) Schmidt recently said,” Mr Karatzaferis told reporters, hours after warning that he would not bow to pressure from Berlin and “blackmail conditions”. Schmidt in December had warned that Germany needed to tread carefully in handling the eurozone crisis and avoid alienating its fellow EU partners.

An accord has to emerge Sunday for Greece to avert a disorderly default in March, Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos warned ahead of the leaders’ meeting. The head of Deutsche Bank Josef Ackermann, chairman of the Institute of International Finance (IIF) which is conducting the negotiations with Greece on behalf of banks, is in Athens and could join the debt talks if an agreement is reached on additional austerity reforms.

But the omens are not good.