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TOPSHOTS Protesters take down a huge banner bearing a picture of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on a European Union flag from the ministry of finance in Athens as they end the occupation of the building on June 11, 2015. The Greek government on Thursday said it would "intensify" efforts to resolve differences with its EU-IMF creditors to reach a deal that would give the country desperately needed bailout funds. AFP PHOTO / LOUISA GOULIAMAKILOUISA GOULIAMAKI/AFP/Getty Images©AFP

Talks aimed at reaching an 11th-hour deal between Greek ministers and their bailout creditors collapsed on Sunday evening after a new economic reform proposal submitted by Athens was deemed inadequate to continue negotiations.

The breakdown is the clearest sign yet that differences between the two sides may be too wide to breach, increasing the possibility that Athens will not secure the €7.2bn in bailout aid it needs to avoid defaulting on its debts — including a €1.5bn loan repayment due to the International Monetary Fund in just two weeks.

Greek negotiators, including Nikos Pappas, aide-de-camp to Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, left the headquarters of the European Commission only 45 minutes after entering the building for what were characterised as a “last try” by one of the eurozone officials involved in the talks.

A commission spokesman said there remained a “significant gap” between the two sides, amounting to up to €2bn per year, and there was no longer time to reach a “positive assessment” of Greek efforts before a high-stakes meeting of eurozone finance ministers on Thursday.

“While some progress was made, the talks did not succeed,” said the spokesman. “On this basis, further discussion will now have to take place in the eurogroup.”

That eurogroup meeting is seen by many officials as the last chance for Athens to secure a deal on an agreed list of the economic reforms its creditors are demanding in order to release the €7.2bn aid tranche before Greece’s EU bailout runs out at the end of the month.

Asked as he exited the commission headquarters whether the break-off in talks was a bad sign, Mr Pappas told the Financial Times: “We will see.”

Greek movement [is] not discernible. I think they do not want a solution

- Senior eurozone official

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Without the endorsement of Greece’s trio of bailout monitors — the commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank — the prospects of an amicable agreement on Thursday is remote, raising the prospect eurozone negotiators may resort to the “take it or leave it” strategy used on Cyprus at a eurogroup meeting two years ago.

On that occasion, an ECB representative warned that without a deal, the central bank would be forced to cut all emergency funding to Cypriot banks — essentially laying waste the country’s financial system. There have been similar pressures on the ECB in the past week to take the same stance with Athens.

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One senior official involved in the talks said there could still be a compromise on Thursday if Greek negotiators “go back to Athens and say: ‘Oh shit, we have to do something’.” But the official acknowledged such a U-turn was unlikely.

Yannis Dragasakis, speaking in Brussels on Sunday after the talks broke up, said Athens “remains ready” to complete the negotiations and blamed Greece’s creditors for being intransigent in their insistence on pension cuts and increases in the country’s value-added tax that Athens believe will hit essential services.

“In spite of the presence of the Geek mission in Brussels, there was no response on the part of the [bailout monitors] for discussions at the same [political] level or authorisations that would permit a solution to the issues that remain open,” Mr Dragasakis said.

In a sign of how far attitudes had shifted, Sigmar Gabriel, Germay’s vice-chancellor and head of the country’s Social Democratic party — long seen as a more conciliatory political group — penned an article for Monday’s daily Bild newspaper in which he warned patience towards Greece in Germany was running thin .

“The game theorists of the Greek government are in the process of gambling away the future of their country,” Mr Gabriel wrote, in a thinly-veiled dig at Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister who is also a published expert on game theory. “Europe and Germany will not let themselves be blackmailed. And we will not let the exaggerated electoral pledges of a partly-communist government be paid for by German workers and their families.“

Another senior eurozone official said Sunday’s evening session would be a “last try”.

The Sunday night talks were scheduled after Greek ministers, who had travelled to Brussels on Saturday, were told their final plan had to be submitted by the end of the weekend.

The message was delivered in a meeting between Mr Pappas and Martin Selmayr, chief of staff to Jean-Claude Juncker, the commission president who has played a central role in trying to broker an 11th-hour deal. One EU diplomat described the meeting as “difficult”.

“Greek movement [is] not discernible,” said a senior eurozone official. “I think they do not want a solution.”

Before the talks, Greek government officials said they would continue to seek debt relief and resist cuts in public sector pensions — positions that have been rebuffed by creditors for weeks.

For nearly two weeks, creditors have been asking Athens to come back with a counterproposal that would fit within a broad programme outline that sets a gradually increasing set of budget surpluses.

Under the creditors’ plan, Athens would need to find measures to hit a primary budget surplus — revenues less expenses when interest on sovereign debt is not counted — of 1 per cent of gross domestic product this year, rising to 2 per cent next year and 3 per cent in 2017. By 2018, the primary surplus would need to hit 3.5 per cent.

Athens has objected to pension cuts and energy tax increases to hit those targets, and has countered with a slower path to the 3.5 per cent target in 2018: 0.75 per cent this year, 1.75 per cent next year, and 2.5 per cent in 2017.

A commission spokesman said the differences remained at about 0.5-1 percentage point of GDP per year.

Before sending his negotiating team back to Brussels, Mr Tsipras told his close advisers on Friday he needed a deal that could be accepted by a comfortable majority in parliament with the backing of the Greek people.

“If we get a viable agreement, no matter how tough the compromise, we will put up with it since our only aim is to get out of the crisis and the humiliating [bailout],” Mr Tsipras was quoted as saying. “But if Europe wants a split and the humiliation to continue, we’ll take the decision to say no, a big no, and we’ll fight for the dignity of our people and our national sovereignty.”