 "Alexis Tsipras")
Greek negotiators were expected to press international creditors for debt relief on Sunday as European leaders turned increasingly confrontational, trying to force Athens into accepting more austerity and reform in return for cash.
Even Germany's Social Democrat leader, hitherto willing to give leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras the benefit of the doubt, warned Athens it risked falling out of the euro unless it stopped giving Europe "the run-around".
European leaders piled pressure on Tsipras to offer major concessions in the search for a deal with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as the country faces a debt default within little more than a fortnight.
The toughest language came not from Greece's long-standing conservative critics but from German Social Democrat chief Sigmar Gabriel, who until recently had been regarded as sympathetic, at least by Berlin standards.
He wrote in Bild newspaper that he wanted to keep Greece in the euro. "But not only is time running out but so too is patience across Europe. Everywhere in Europe, the sentiment is growing that enough is enough," said Gabriel, who is vice-chancellor in Angela Merkel's grand coalition government.
"The shadow of an exit of Greece from the euro zone takes on ever clearer shape," he said. "Repeated apparently final attempts to reach a deal are starting to make the whole process look ridiculous. There is an ever greater number of people who feel as if the Greek government is giving them the run-around."
Merkel's Social Democrat coalition partners have felt some solidarity with Tsipras, even though his Syriza party lies much further to the left.
But Gabriel's comments suggest he is fast losing his remaining friends in Europe. Germany's Frankfurt Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung reported European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, also reputed to have been more sympathetic to Greek views, warned Tsipras about the risk of "Grexit" - a Greek exit from the euro - when they met last week. Tsipras says imposing yet more austerity on a country whose economy has shrunk by a quarter in recent years is futile, and will only deepen the suffering of Greeks whose living standards have already dived while unemployment soared.
Giving instructions to his negotiating team before it headed to Brussels for weekend talks, Tsipras said on Friday he may accept bitter compromises, but signaled he wants a significant easing of Greece's huge debt burden in return.
Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has questioned the creditors' good intentions. "If you look at the latest proposal from the IMF and from the Commission, it is just the kind of proposal that one puts forward if one does not want an agreement," he told the BBC on Saturday.
Analyst Jacob Funk Kirkegaard cast doubt on the government's longevity. Europe seemed to be giving up on trying to coax Tsipras towards the political center, opting for confrontation that might lead to "a new more realistic government".
"It is increasingly obvious he is not even a closet centrist but largely seems to agree with the left wing of his party. The euro area thus has no real choice but to seek regime change in Athens," he said on the website of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
