GREECE'S Deputy Prime Minister has warned his country will run out of money in six weeks unless it honours its bitterly disputed EU bailout deal.

Speaking to London's The Sunday Telegraph, Theodoros Pangalos said he was ''very much afraid of what is going to happen'' after Greek voters rejected the deal in recent elections. ''The majority of the people voted for a very strange mental construction,'' he said. ''We want to be in the EU and the euro, but we don't want to pay anything for the past.''

The main beneficiary of the election, the hard-left Syriza coalition, came a startling second on a promise to tear up the deal, which promises EU loans to keep the massively indebted country afloat, but demands crippling spending cuts in return. Germany, the principal lender, has said it will stop payments if Greece breaks its promises on spending.

Mr Pangalos warned: ''There is a school of thought that says the Germans are bluffing, and that they need Greece and will never throw us out of the eurozone. But what will happen … is they will not give us the money to pay our debts.