ITV News: Polls show Greek split ahead of bailout referendum

Varoufakis also believes there is “100% chance of success” in negotiations with lenders after the Sunday referendum.

Germany said there would be no talks pre-referendum.

The creditors did not accept Greece’s new overture, leaving the country’s bailout programme to expire.

He argues this does not mean an exit from the euro group of nations sharing the same currency. “It’s up to the Greeks to respond”.

However, up to 1,000 branches re-opened on Wednesday to allow pensioners – many of whom do not use bank cards – a one-off weekly withdrawal of up to €120.

On the third day of a bank closure, long lines formed at many cash distributors.

He thanked Greeks for their “calm” in the face of bank closures and angrily denied he had a secret plan to take Greece out of the euro, calling those who made that accusation “liars”.

In an interview on public television, she said “what the Greeks are living through corresponds exactly to what we, the Argentinians, went through in 2001: the consequences of awful neoliberal policies… which led to misery, hunger and unemployment”. “And I don’t know what to do on Sunday: vote “yes”, vote “no””.

In Sunday’s vote, Greeks will be asked to accept or reject proposals made by creditors last week.

Without those funds, Greece was not in a position to pay the IMF on Tuesday.

In a note published from Athens on Wednesday, Manulife chief economist Megan Greene said “Merkel is not going to waste political capital negotiating with a government on the brink of collapse over a deal that everyone well knows this government cannot implement”.

But eurozone finance ministers were due to meet again yesterday to discuss the terms once more.

Also today, in a letter to creditors, Tsipras said the government is prepared to accept most conditions imposed for a bailout.

“That suggestion is simply wrong”, Dijsselbloem told lawmakers in the Netherlands. On Sunday it will fall to the Greek people to decide an issue that their government was unable to settle in months of acrimonious negotiations with their European partners.

“There will be no talks in the coming days, either at eurogroup level or between the Greek authorities and the institutions on proposals or financial arrangements”.

“We are making an additional effort”, he said. “I’m in total agreement with (banks) closing”.

At an optometrist in the Athens suburb of Kallithea, there has not been a single customer all week.

If Greece votes Yes, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis announced Thursday he will resign. Tsipras has implied he could do the same.

The International Monetary Fund says that, whatever the outcome of the referendum, Greece will need some Euro 50 B over the next three years to keep itself afloat.

By Wednesday afternoon, Greece was completely isolated and sinking deeper into a financial and economic hole.

“If there’s a yes vote then we will sign the agreement. An accord is for right now, it will not be put off”, Hollande said. The possible contagion effect on other eurozone countries such as Spain and Italy – whose situation is nowhere as bad as Greece’s – can not be ignored but seems much less likely than would have been the case two years ago.