As this paper was being sent to print, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has arrived in Brussels where this same evening (Wednesday) he will meet European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker for make-or-break bailout talks with a deadline looming for Athens to make a critical repayment.

Greece and its international creditors are at a critical phase in talks to reach a deal to unlock €7.2 billion to help Athens make Friday's €300 million euro repayment to the IMF.

But months of fractious talks have been stalled over creditors' insistence that Athens undertake greater reforms which Greece's anti-austerity government has refused to match.

Without a deal by the end of this week, fears are growing that Greece could default, possibly setting off a chain reaction that could end with a messy exit from the eurozone and cause havoc to the economy in Europe and the world.

Greece "will not pay" the €300m it owes the International Monetary Fund this week unless Athens reaches a deal with its creditors in the next few days, a government spokesman has warned.

The Greek government is due to pay back €305m of rescue loans on June 5, but a spokesman for leftist party Syriza said it would miss this deadline if there was no prospect of an agreement being reached.

"If there is no prospect of a deal by Friday or Monday ... we will not pay," said Nikos Filis told Mega TV.

It came as Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, called for a "strong agreement" between Greece and its creditors that balanced "social fairness" with "fiscal sustainability".

Officials have warned for months that a default could ultimately push Greece out of the single European currency and unleash possible turmoil on world markets.

Both sides have issued last ditch demands in their bail-out talks. The eurozone's negotiators are understood to be finalising what amounts to a take-it-or-leave-it deal.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said yesterday that an initial look at Greece's reform proposals to international lenders indicated that talks aimed at getting a deal to unlock cash for Athens will still take time.

Pointing to comments he made last week that he did not share Greek optimism about a deal, he said the situation was unchanged after he had seen Athens' latest proposals.

"I have no information that anything decisive has changed in terms of substance," said Schaeuble at an event in Berlin.

The situation in Greece has been deteriorating for weeks if not months now, money has fled out of the banks, investment decisions have been shelved and the government has no idea where it can get the money to pay the IMF dues. Yet the Tsipras government is holding fast to its anti-austerity electoral commitment and the hardliners inside the governing majority time and again block the government's timid attempts to come to an acceptable compromise.

The air in Athens is full of speculation about a snap election, and this could be an outcome from tonight's meeting. Only, an election costs time (and money) to hold and may well solve nothing.

The irony is that countries such as Spain and maybe Italy have found a way to get out of their economic crisis but their shell-shocked populations still punish the existing governments while in Greece the government is still hardline but the people seem to love it.

The issues facing Greece are tremendous - Grexit is one of the options and would cause chaos not just in Greece but also in Europe - and yet a sizeable proportion of the country is still in denial, not just of the facts close at hands such as the banks' resilience but also of the simple economic facts of life.