Meanwhile, tourists have been warned they could be left without food or access to medicines 'within days'

The country is teetering on the edge, with cash reserves of just 500million euros (£355million) in the bank

Latest poll shows support for 'Yes' campaign is slightly ahead of the government-backed 'No'

preparing to vote in a referendum on Sunday on whether to accept latest bailout agreement

Distraught elderly Greeks have been queuing outside banks to withdraw pensions - but are restricted to 120 euros


The real cost of the Greek referendum campaign is etched on the pensioner's face, as he sits sobbing on the pavement outside a bank.

Helped up by a police officer and staff member, the elderly man is clearly in a state of distress.

He, like thousands of Greece's older residents, is restricted to taking out 120 euros from his state pension this week.

Meanwhile, the country's 'Yes' and 'No' campaigners prepare to take to the streets this evening, before the referendum to decide whether to accept the terms of the latest bailout agreement on Sunday - which could decide the future of the country in the eurozone.

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Distress: An elderly man weeps as he is assisted by an employee and a policeman outside a bank in Thessaloniki, in northern Greece

Anger: The pensioner gesticulates as he leaves the bank. Elderly people have been hit the hardest, with the government restricting the amount they can withdraw from the state payment to just 120 euros for this week

Tears: Greek pensioners have been queuing at some banks, closed to everyone else, since before dawn to get their money

Greeks are being asked if the government should accept a bailout plan that would restart financial aid in exchange for further austerity measures and economic reform.

Rallies for both campaigns are due to be held this evening in Athens' city centre, as it emerged the 'Yes' vote was just over a per cent ahead of the 'No' for the first time.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, in a televised address to the nation, has called on voters to reject creditors' proposals for more austerity in return for rescue loans - urging Greeks to vote 'no to ultimatums, divisions and fear'.

He said the referendum is not a vote on whether Greece will remain in the euro.

Tsipras also said an International Monetary Fund report that says Greece needs debt relief 'fully justifies' Athens' position that Greece's debt load is unsustainable. The Greek leader said it was pointless to keep imposing harsh spending cuts on salaries and pensions just to continue servicing an unsustainable debt.

Yesterday, finance minister Yanis Varoufakis slamming the policy of austerity enacted on Greece over the last five years as a 'travesty'.

Varoufakis - who has said he will step down if the country votes 'Yes' - has insisted that a 'No' vote would relaunch the country's negotiations with its international creditors.

He is hoping to end five years of rolling bailouts for Greece and the 'pretending' that its debts can be repaid.

But he told the BBC on Thursday 'an agreement will be reached' either way. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has refused to engage in further negotiations until after Sunday's vote.

'If it's a 'Yes' it will be a bad agreement, the banks will open with a bad agreement... If a 'No' wins we are going to have another agreement which will be viable.'

Varoufakis added: 'We have a very bad system of governance in Europe. This is not the way to run a monetary union. This is a travesty. It's a comedy of errors for five years now, Europe has been extending and pretending.

'The programme that they imposed upon this country and which they want to continue imposing... is going to come down in economic history as the greatest cock-up ever.'

But his comments came as the Greek debt crisis hit a new low, after it was claimed plans to open the banks' doors again on Tuesday could be impossible due to having cash reserves of just 500million euros (£355million).

Agreement: German Chancellor Angela Merkel is refusing to hold further negotiations with Greece until after the referendum

Pledge: Greece's finance minister Yanis Varoufakis says he'd rather 'cut off his arm' than agree to the latest debt deal offered by the eurogroup and has promised to resign if his country votes yes in the referendum

Panic: Huge queues have been building outside banks as people wait to get their state pension

Concerns: Varoufakis has said an agreement will be reached whichever way the vote goes. Pictured: People queuing for the bank in Athens

Debt crisis: A pensioner receives part of her pension outside a bank in Athens today where desperate elderly people without ATM cards have been queuing up outside banks

GREEK VOTE 'TOO CLOSE TO CALL' Greece is almost evenly split over a crucial weekend referendum that could decide its financial fate, with a 'Yes' result possibly ahead by a whisker, new surveys show. The poll by the Alco institute said 44.8 percent of Greeks intend to vote 'Yes' and 43.4 percent are for 'No' - making it the first published survey to give a lead to the 'Yes' vote ahead of Sunday's ballot. However the survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, meaning it was still seen as too close to call. The figures nevertheless confirmed other polling results suggesting a swing away from the 'No' vote urged by Greece's leftwing government towards the 'Yes' camp. The survey, carried out on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, after Greece imposed capital controls, found 11.8 percent Greeks were undecided. Advertisement

The reserves are being eaten away by withdrawals from cashpoint machines. Many are empty and citizens are now only allowed to take 50 euros a day, down from 60.

Constantine Michalos, head of the Hellenic Chambers of Commerce, told The Daily Telegraph: ‘The cash reserves of the banks are down to 500million euros. Anybody who thinks they are going to open again on Tuesday is daydreaming. The cash would not last an hour.

‘We are in an extremely dangerous situation. The Greek business community is unable to import anything, and without raw materials they can’t produce anything.’

There has also been a stark warning to tourists from Constantine Michalos, president of Athens Chamber of Commerce, who said there was a real risk of visitors being left without the 'basics'.

He told BBC Radio 4: 'We will see as of next week shortages on the shelves.

'We are not in the position, although we may have funds in our accounts, to actually import goods and the major worry here is with basic sectors of the economy such as food and pharmaceuticals.'

Business leaders have been locked in talks with the Bank of Greece for the immediate release of emergency liquidity funds to cover food imports and pharmaceutical goods.

Officials say the central bank will release the funds today, but this is a stop-gap measure at best. The news comes as the Bank of England warned that the crisis posed a threat to British economic recovery. Deputy governor Sir Jon Cunliffe said the UK must ‘prepare for the worst’ as Greece lurched closer to a eurozone exit ahead of Sunday’s referendum.

He said economic defences ‘will be tested’ by a Grexit that could wreak havoc in the eurozone – the UK’s main trading partner.

Sir Jon said: ‘It is a very volatile situation. It is a very fluid situation. It is a very dangerous situation.’ The warning came as the International Monetary Fund said Greece needed £35billion in emergency aid over three years to stay afloat.

Anger with the government has been growing. Shop assistant Suzanna Alizoti, 32, said: ‘Tsipras has made the situation much worse, it’s his fault the banks are closed.’

This week Greece became the first developed nation to miss an IMF repayment. EU leaders have ruled out further talks before the referendum, which is now effectively a vote on Greece’s future in the euro.

Ordeal: The elderly woman is given water by a bank manager after collapsing while trying to get to her cash

Chaos at banks: A crowd of pensioners push and shove as they attempt to get into a bank on the island of Crete today

Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said on Wednesday that the BoE was ready to take whatever action was required to limit the spillover if Greece were to leave the euro zone.

Yesterday, the chairman of the eurogroup has blasted Greek 'time wasters' after further talks were scrapped until after the referendum.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who is also Dutch Foreign Minister, said he sees 'little chance' of progress after Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' speech calling for 'no' vote on the austerity measures.

Dijsselbloem added that an overwhelming majority of Greeks wanted to stay in the euro, and the referendum would show whether they were prepared to accept the austerity needed to do so.

His comments came as hundreds of desperate pensioners were pictured pushing and shoving outside Greek banks this morning after 1,000 reopened to allow those without ATM cards to make small withdrawals.

The Greek government ordered the banks to reopen to allow those without any other means of obtaining cash to enter and remove a maximum of €120 from their retirement funds.

Describing the referendum, retired pharmacy worker Popi Stavrakaki, 68 said: 'It's very bad. I'm afraid it will be worse soon. I have no idea why this is happening.'

Stand-off: Jeroen Dijsselbloem (left) said he sees 'little chance' of progress after Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' (right) speech calling for 'no' vote on the austerity measures

Pensioners are given priority tickets as they wait to receive part of their pensions in Athens this morning

Speaking yesterday, Tsipras said: 'There are those who insist on linking the result of the referendum with the country's future in the euro. They even say I have a so-called secret plan to take the country out of the EU if the vote is 'no'.

HOTEL CRISIS Hotels in Greece have seen a collapse in last-minute bookings, which are down 50,000 a day. And some hotels only have enough food and drink to last another ten days as bank closures make paying suppliers difficult, according to the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises. Last-minute bookings account for 20 per cent of tourist traffic and the biggest drop is from Greeks themselves at close to 50 per cent. Association head Andreas Andreadis said: ‘We are concerned in the tourism industry [and] hope there will be a deal with our EU partners.’ Advertisement

'They are lying with the full knowledge of that fact.'

The hastily called referendum is based on creditor reform proposals made last week as part of a negotiation with the Greek government.

But they were later updated and are now no longer on the table as the European part of Greece's bailout program expired at midnight on Monday.

The European Central Bank has left the terms of its emergency $100 billion cash support to Greece unchanged, a day after Athens slipped into arrears with the International Monetary Fund and its bailout program expired.

The move kept chances alive for a settlement between Greece and creditors and Yanis Varoufakis publicly thanked the ECB and its president, Mario Draghi, for the decision.

'This allows us to breathe. It's a very positive move and a move of good will on the part of the European Central Bank. I welcome it,' Varoufakis told state television.

Unrest at famous site: Police officers are seen in front of the temple of the Parthenon atop the Acropolis, after receiving information that anti-austerity protesters are planning to place a banner at the ancient site in Athens

Worried: A woman holds her head in her hands after discovering she can only receive part of her weekly pension from a bank

Draghi, he said, had faced down 'hawks' among eurozone members who had demanded that Athens increase collateral needed to receive continued assistance.

Greece is seeking a third bailout from the eurozone rescue fund after the previous deal expired this week without agreement on the terms of final pay outs.

The impasse left billions of bailout money frozen or cancelled and saw Greece forced to close banks and its stock market for at least a week.

Eurozone finance ministers decided to put the talks with Greece on hold till the weekend vote takes place.

Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem said: 'Given the political situation, the rejection of the previous proposals, the referendum which will take place on Sunday, and the recommendation by the Greek government to vote 'No', we see no grounds for further talks at this point.

'There will be no talks in the coming days.'

Waiting for their money: Pensioners, pictured queueing up outside a National Bank of Greece branch in central Athens, are allowed to claim up to 120 euros

Fight against austerity: A woman makes her way past referendum campaign poster with the word 'No' in Greek in Athens

On the verge of leaving the eurozone: Greece is in a financial limbo now that its bailout program has expired, cutting it off from vital financing and pushing it one step closer to leaving the euro

Business associations and the country's largest labor union urged the government to cancel the vote.

And the Council of Europe - an independent body that monitors elections and human rights - told The Associated Press the referendum would fall short of international standards.

Greece is in a financial limbo now that its bailout program has expired, cutting it off from vital financing and pushing it one step closer to leaving the euro.

It also has become the first developed country to fail to repay a debt to the International Monetary Fund on time. The last country to miss an IMF payment was Zimbabwe in 2001.

As long as it is in arrears on the IMF payment, Greece cannot get any more money from the organization.

The referendum has thrown additional confusion into the already fraught negotiations.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said a deal remained impossible before the referendum, while French President Francois Hollande said creditors should seek an accord before then.

'We have to be clear. An accord is for right now, it will not be put off,' Hollande said.

Defiant PM: Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is resisting the pressure from the eurogroup, insisting a 'No' vote would give the government a stronger negotiating position

Upcoming vote: More elderly line up outside a bank in Athens to receive their pensions today ahead of a weekend referendum on whether Greece should accept austerity measures proposed by the eurogroup