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Brave Greek voters delivered an emphatic ‘No’ to austerity and plunged Europe into fresh crisis.

As counting on the nation’s crunch referendum continues it is clear Greeks had voted overwhelmingly against the EU’s harsh bail-out terms.

“There is a new popular mandate,” beamed Greece’s EU negotiator Euclid Tsakaloto.

The landslide 60%-40% margin sent shock waves across Europe and moved Greece a major step closer to a Euro exit.

Market turmoil is expected when the stock exchanges open on Monday morning, following warnings the referendum was effectively a vote on Greece’s eurozone membership.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will head to Paris for crisis talks with French President Francois Hollande.

(Image: EPA)

In Downing Street David Cameron will meet with Chancellor George Osborne and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney to discuss the impact on the UK economy.

Anaylysts said the prospect of Greece exiting the Euro - a so-called ‘Grexit’ - have soared.

“Those who thought the chances of Grexit were at 60% last week must now be revising them up to 80%,” said Forex.com’s Kathleen Brooks.

Anton Boerner, the head of Germany’s main exporters’ association, said he could not see how Greece can now remain in the Euro.

Mr Tsipras shocked EU leaders last month by announcing he would put the terms of their latest bail-out proposal to the Greek people in a snap referendum.

His decision followed months of fruitless negotiations over Greece’s huge debt pile, despite his radical left-wing party Syriza’s election on a clear anti-austerity ticket.

Greece’s creditors have offered real few concessions and Mr Tsipras urged voters to reject the stringent terms offered by the EU, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank (ECB).

He told supporters that with a popular mandate behind him, Greece’s creditors would have no choice but to return to the table with a better deal.

Mr Tsipras has spoken to several EU leaders by phone including President Hollande.

His negotiating team will now head back to Brussels to demand fresh talks over debt relief and an end to the austerity they say is squeezing the life out of the country.

But critics fear that no such deal will be reached, meaning cash-strapped Greece would be forced to drop out of the Euro altogther.

Such an outcome has been described as Europe’s potential “Lehman Brothers moment”, in reference to the collapse of the US investment bank in 2008 which triggered the global economic meltdown.

(Image: REUTERS)

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble appeared to hint at a possible third option by suggesting Greece could drop out of the Euro “temporarily”.

For Athens the immediate problem is an urgent lack of cash, with bank machines starting to run dry across the nation.

Restrictions on cash withdrawls have been in place since the ECB cut off emergency funding to Greece a week ago.

The decisive poll result now piles huge pressure on Europe to agree emergency bail-out funding for the Greek banks.

“The real worry I have now is the economy has collapsed so significantly that getting out of it from here is going to be so, so difficult,” said Greek economist Vicky Pryce.

“You need liquidity, you need investment, you need a completely different approach to Greece.

“For the short term it just needs an awful lot of cash and an easing of the various austerity measures

“Right now all the cards are with the European Central Bank.

“If it doesn’t give the extra cash to the Greek banking system, it will crash out (of the euro) and have no choice to bring the drachma back.”