PM hopeful amid Grexit fears

Greece yesterday said it is still hopeful an 11th-hour deal can be reached before it defaults on its debt as the ECB threw Greek banks another lifeline as depositors withdraw their savings.

"Those who invest in crisis and terror scenarios will be proven wrong," Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras's office said, amid reports that Greeks banks are struggling to cope with a rush of withdrawals.

While new emergency European meetings have been called to break the deadlock in talks to unlock bailout funds, the brinkmanship between Athens and its creditors has pushed Greece close to a default that could lead to a messy euro and EU exit.

Dire headlines have apparently led to Greeks to withdraw more money from banks, which they have been doing gradually for months.

A billion euros were withdrawn from Greek banks on Thursday, following another 1.6 billion euros over the two previous days, financial website euro2day reported.

EU President Donald Tusk has called an emergency summit of the leaders of the 19 eurozone countries in Brussels yesterday after finance ministers failed Thursday to break the five-month deadlock between the anti-austerity government in Athens and its international creditors.

French President Francois Hollande insisted Friday that "everything" must be done to seal a compromise on the Greek debt crisis.

We must "do everything to relaunch negotiations, so the talks can achieve a compromise, but one in line with European rules," said Hollande, following talks in Bratislava with his Slovak counterpart.

Hollande said Monday's emergency eurozone summit would be "crucial".

"I don't want us to meet only to come to the conclusion that we have failed," he said.

In a move that seemed calculated to irk other European leaders amid tensions with Russia over Ukraine, Tsipras was visiting Saint Petersburg as the star guest at President Vladimir Putin's investment drive forum.

The Greek and Russian leaders were due to hold talks yesterday, as Moscow and Athens signed a preliminary agreement to set up a joint venture to extend the TurkStream pipeline through Greece, a long-term project which the Greek government hopes will translate into an upfront payment of some sort.

Expressing the broader mood towards Tsipras' diplomacy, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker has admitted to being baffled by the young Greek leader.

"I don't understand Tsipras," Juncker told German news weekly Der Spiegel in an article to be published today.

Greece has little time left to agree a reform deal in order to secure the remaining portion of its multi-billion-euro bailout, which it needs to avoid defaulting on a debt payment of around 1.5 billion euros to the International Monetary Fund due on June 30.

Analysts have long warned that a default may set off a chain of events leading to a 'Grexit' -- Greece leaving the eurozone, and even the Bank of Greece warned that would be the likely result of a default.