Greeks take to the streets in thousands to protest against EU ‘blackmailers’

Thousands of Greek protesters have taken to the streets of Athens urging their government to stand firm and reject further austerity measures being demanded by the country’s creditors. Carrying banners accusing EU leaders of being “loan sharks” and “blackmailers,” the demonstrators aimed to send a message to Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras - leader of the left wing Syriza party - that his election victory in January gave him a mandate to take a tough stance against pressure to burden the country with fresh cuts. “If we accept their terms, and we have more austerity measures, things can only get worse,” said Ifigemia Lanza, a young lawyer and Syriza supporter.

The insistence that this money must come from new cuts to pensions from us is an incomprehensible insistence, and we must, not with technocrats, but leaders in Europe now come to a political decision.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras

European finance ministers are set to meet in Luxembourg on Thursday later for what is being billed as a last ditch effort to strike a deal to prevent Greece defaulting on its debts and crashing out of the eurozone. The country needs to repay more than €1.5bn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) by the end of the month, but will not be able to unless its lenders agree to release a final €7.2bn tranche of rescue funds in exchange for further fiscal reforms. Proposed cuts to pensions and other belt-tightening measures proposed by the European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF have so far been rejected by the Greek leadership.