Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras urged Germany and France at a summit yesterday to help him tackle a looming cash crunch, despite warnings that Athens must commit to reforms first.

The left-wing Greek leader sat down for emergency talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Francois Hollande and the EU’s top officials on the sidelines of a European summit in Brussels.

As AFP reports, Tsipras said Greece faced a “humanitarian crisis” if its creditors do not unlock the remaining funds in its EU-IMF bailout, with Athens at risk of running out of money by the end of the week.

But mounting fears of a Greek exit from the euro have failed to stop Brussels insisting that Greece’s new government must meet its reform pledges before it gets any cash.

European alarm and frustration mounted after the Greek parliament adopted a crisis bill aimed at helping the poor on Wednesday.

“At the summit, Alexis Tsipras said it was contradictory that Europe accepts that there is a humanitarian crisis in Greece, while at the same time accusing Greece of unilateral action when it votes for measures to deal with it,” a government statement out of Athens said.

Tsipras accused Greece’s creditors in the EU, IMF and ECB of “holding up red cards”, saying this was “holding back progress” on completing Greece’s 240-billion-euro ($255-billion) bailout by June as agreed last month.

Greece was not formally on the agenda of the full meeting of the 28 EU leaders but Tsipras was allowed to speak briefly, ahead of the sideline talks.

The separate Greece meeting was also attended by European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker, European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi and Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister who chairs the euro single currency group.

A European source said the meeting would probably produce an agreement to clarify the terms of the bailout.

Time is running out for Athens as Friday brings a key debt deadline when Greece must pay 300 million euros to the IMF and redeem 1.6 billion euros in treasury bills.

Athens says Brussels is unfairly holding back the last seven-billion-euro tranche of its $240-billion-euro bailout.