Greece out of cash by weekend

Banks down to last €500m, companies rationed, fuel stations refuse credit cards

GREEK banks are down to their last €500 million – barely enough cash to last until the end of the weekend, The

Daily Telegraph has learnt. Just four days after the authorities were forced to impose a daily €60 limit on cash machine withdrawals, reserves have dwindled to a perilous low.

The government is now imposing rations on companies as the country has been left days away from collapse.

Yanis Varoufakis, the finance minister, warned that Greece was on a fullblown “war footing” as cash machines run dry and petrol stations and small businesses stop accepting payment by credit card.

Greek business leaders are pleading with the Bank of Greece to release vital funds they need to keep paying for food and medicine imports.

A five-man committee has been set up inside the Greek treasury to ration the amount of cash companies are allowed to send abroad.

The crisis has been exacerbated by ordinary savers withdrawing more than €1 billion from banks in the days before the restrictions were introduced on Monday. Since then Greek banks have been inundated with citizens desperate to withdraw their deposits.

Constantine Michalos, head of the Hellenic Chambers of Commerce, said lenders were running out of money ahead of Sunday’s referendum on whether to accept the terms of a proposed €12 billion European Union bail- out extension. “We are reliably informed that the cash reserves of the banks are down to €500 million [£355 million],” said Mr Michalos.

The cash crunch means there is almost no chance that Greek banks will be able to open fully again as intended after an imposed bank holiday ends next Tuesday, said Mr Michalos.

“Anybody who thinks they are going to open again on Tuesday is day dreaming,” he said. “The cash would not last an hour. We are in an extremely dangerous situation.”

Yesterday the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that Greece would need another €50 billion just to stay afloat over the next three years.

The government was forced to shut banks on Monday to prevent a collapse of the financial system and keep the country in the euro. But these capital control measures are now having to be ramped up to protect the banking system further.

A €60 limit on ATM withdrawals has been reduced to €50 as cash machines have run out of €20 notes.

Mr Varoufakis admitted he would resign from office if voters returned a “Yes” vote on Sunday, backing the bailout terms from its international creditors that his Leftist government has refused.

He said he would “prefer to cut off my own arm” rather than sign a deal which did not give the country any relief on its €330 billion debt pile. The latest polls

show that the “Yes” campaign is gaining momentum, with 47 per cent of Greeks backing a deal to raise taxes and cut spending to get more bail-out cash, according to a survey carried out by French bank BNP Paribas.

Faith in the negotiating tactics of Alexis Tsipras’s government is also fading among his own ruling coalition.

“We have had months of childish tactics. They thought they could blackmail Europe into making concessions instead of going to the root of the problem facing this country and accepting that we have to break free altogether,” one MP told The Daily Telegraph.

Greece’s financial woes were laid bare by the IMF yesterday which said creditors would have to pump a further €36 billion into the country to prevent it from going bust over the next three years. The fund is seen as the “lender of last resort” to the most war-torn and financially ravaged nations, but is ready to pull the plug on Greece if its debts remain at 180 per cent of GDP.

Greece’s creditors have called on Mr Tsipras to call off the referendum or face the consequences of a “No” vote which they say will mean the country will have to leave the eurozone.

News also emerged that the British Government spied on Germany’s plans to bail out Greece at the height of its crisis in 2011, according to diplomatic leaks uncovered by WikiLeaks. British officials then passed on the intelligence, which intercepted the calls of Angela Merkel, to the US, the leaks show.