ECB to decide whether to support Greek banks; Austria shows solidarity with Greece

Fears of Greece's default are mounting, as the country has only 13 days to reach an agreement with its creditors. A few hours are left until finance ministers meet to discuss the impasse in Luxembourg on Thursday.

The lingering crisis puts more pressure on the European Central Bank, which today has to decide whether to keep providing emergency liquidity to the Greek banking sector.

As the Guardian reports, the ECB has already provided around €82bn of support, to help banks keep afloat despite the constant loss of deposits as scared savers withdraw their cash.

The ECB will hardly pull the plug on ELA today; such a move would be far too political for the central bank at this stage in the crisis.

As analysts think, the regulator could agree to raise it by a few billion euros - a big increase would suggest that the outflow of deposits has accelerated.

Austrian chancellor Werner Faymann is going to Athens on Wednesday for talks with prime minister Alexis Tsipras at noon local time, followed by statements to the press. Faymann will be urging Tsipras to reach a deal, to head off the growing risks that Greece fails to repay €1.6bn to the IMF on 30 June.

The threat prompted US Treasury secretary Jack Lew to make a telephone call to Tsipras last night and push for a “pragmatic compromise.”

This happened few hours after the Greek PM accused the IMF of “criminal responsibility” for the crisis.

Meawhile, Austria's chancellor said he will stand by the Greek people. He accused some of the measures which Greece’s lenders - the IMF, ECB and EC - are demanding, saying:

“I know there were a number of proposals, also from the institutions, that I also don’t find in order.”

“High joblessness, 30-40 percent (with) no health insurance and then raising VAT on medicines. People in this difficult situation cannot understand that.”