EU leaders in emergency Greece debt crisis talks

International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi met in Berlin late last night with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in an attempt to reach a deal with Athens over Greece’s debt crisis.

They were joined by EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and French President Francois Hollande in a meeting that was reportedly aimed at coming up with a “final proposal” to present to Athens.

After the meeting, a spokesperson for Merkel told the AFP news agency that the five of them agreed to work together "intensely" in the coming days and would stay in "close contact".

Athens is facing insolvency and must make €1.6 billion in payments to the International Monetary Fund within the next few weeks, with the first payment of €300 million due on Friday. Greece remains at deadlock with its international creditors over the release of €7.2 billion in remaining bailout funds. The bailout release would pave the way for further negotiations ona  third rescue package for Greece, which could involve a write-down of its unsustainable debt.

However, the IMF, ECB and the European Commission are demanding that Athens impose further austerity reforms in return for the money, a condition Alexis Tsipras’ Greek government is refusing.

The Greek Prime Minister was reportedly not contacted during the emergency meeting.

In a column published by French newspaper Le Monde on Sunday, Tsipras claimed that his government was not to blame for the impasse.

"It is due to the insistence of certain institutional actors on submitting absurd proposals and displaying a total indifference to the recent democratic choice of the Greek people," he wrote.

This is despite daily pronouncements from Athens that Greece and the Eurozone were on the brink of an agreement. However, Tsipras insisted that the crisis has now moved beyond the level of financial negotiations and would need to be resolved at an EU political level.