Athens, EU clash over handouts for poor

Plans by Greece’s leftist government to provide free electricity and food stamps to the poorest households have deepened the country’s divide with Brussels.

Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, lashed out at exasperated European creditors on Thursday, accusing them of trying to ‘‘bully Athens into submission’’ in return for a continued bailout.

Tsipras delivered his angriest anti-European Union tirade so far as his government pushed ahead with a vote on a so-called humanitarian crisis bill which a Brussels official said threatened further to undermine Greece’s finances.

The EU’s opposition to the bill was ‘‘brazen audacity’’, Tsipras said. ‘‘I don’t think they get it. This piece of legislation comes after five years of savage austerity that wreaked havoc within our society. They want us to freeze this bill so that thousands of more households in Greece will continue to freeze without electricity and food. Is this the Europe they envision?’’

Tsipras’s uncompromising words set the stage for tough talks when he meets Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, President Francois Hollande of France and other EU leaders at a summit in Brussels on Friday.

The Greek prime minister sought a series of one-on-one encounters to put his case for the next € 7 billion (NZ$10b) handout. This has been held up by the failure of Athens to convince EU governments that it will implement reforms and continue to purge the country’s economy.

Renewed tensions between Athens and the rest of the eurozone have revived fears of a default that could push Greece out of the single currency. Experts from Greece and the international lenders started talks last week on details of reforms, but have made little progress.

‘‘We have the impression, and everyone who is dealing with the question shares the impression, that time is running out for Greece. They obviously have certain problems,’’ German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble said on Wednesday.

While the Germans have been sounding increasingly unconcerned about the prospect of a ‘‘Grexit’’, or Greek departure from the euro, Paris has been trying to calm the atmosphere in the hope of averting an ‘‘accidental’’ default.

‘‘France will be do everything it can to avoid an accident and I believe that what we will do will avoid it,’’ Finance Minister Michel Sapin said on Thursday. ‘‘No-one can be categorical on this and this is why, on both sides, people must control their language.’’

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister who chairs the eurozone’s governing council of ministers, said on Thursday that Greece might be forced to resort to Cypriot-style capital controls to prevent depositors taking their money out of the country. Cyprus was forced to impose capital controls in the spring of 2013 to curb a run on its banks as a € 10b bailout programme was struck with the EU.

Tsipras said the Greek Parliament would vote in the antipoverty law and that nothing would deflect his government in its intention to fulfil election pledges to end the austerity programme that had been imposed on Greece by its creditors.