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Relations between Greece and its creditors reached breaking point on Thursday as the country's finance minister accused the European Central Bank of "asphyxiating" the cash-strapped economy.

In a series of traded insults, Yanis Varoufakis said the ECB, which has tightened the noose on the Leftist government, was "pursuing a policy that can be considered asphyxiating toward our government."   His comments came before Germany's Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann said Athens had "squandered the trust" of its European partners.  As one of Greece's main three international creditors, the ECB has rebuffed Athens' requests to raise short-term debt to alleviate an impending funding crisis.   Greece, which has yet to be granted access to €7.2bn in bail-out funds, is scrambling to pay €1.2bn in loans to the IMF before the end of the month.

Athens has also been seeking a €2bn increase in emergency funding for its banks as deposit flight has accelerated over the past month. According to reports, the central bank decided to raise the ceiling by just €600m on Thursday. Greek lenders have been increasingly reliant on the expensive emergency funds from Frankfurt after the ECB stopped its ordinary lending to the country. The country's Eurosystem funding reached a 13-month high of €104bn, in February according to the Bank of Greece. But Mr Weidmann, who sits on the ECB's governing council, said the assistance had to be "temporary" and could only continue as long as Greek lenders remained solvent. 

The Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is in Brussels today to meet the European Commission’s President Jean-Claude Juncker.  The pair will attempt to make some progress on a way forward for Greece, after eurozone finance ministers rejected Athens’ reform proposals on Monday. Juncker said he was ready to make “proposals” to overcome the differences between Greece and its eurozone partners.  I’m not satisfied with the developments in recent weeks. I don’t think we have made sufficient progress.  I’m totally excluding a failure. I don’t want a failure. I would like Europeans to go together. This is not a time for division. This is a time for coming together.

Tsipras said he was optimistic the political will existed to find a solution soon.