Greece crisis looms over G7 summit in Germany

Elmau

 Greece's financial woes were set to dominate a G7 summit in Germany on Sunday, amid fears the debt-wracked country could crash out of the euro and rock the world economy.

 The two-day summit of world leaders in the picture-perfect Bavarian Alps will also focus on the rumbling Ukraine crisis and threats to global security posed by jihadist extremists.

 German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a champion of tough eurozone reform and austerity, is hosting the other leaders of the Group of Seven industrialised democracies -- the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Japan.

 Also at the power meet will be Greece's international creditors who have wrangled for weeks to hammer out a reform plan that would unlock a final 7.2 billion euros ($8 billion) in bailout funds Athens desperately needs.

 European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and EU President Donald Tusk were among the guests due to speak Sunday, with International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde joining them on Monday.

 In a sign of growing tensions ahead of a key deadline at the end of June, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has dismissed creditors' demands as "absurd".

 Juncker on Saturday snubbed a phone call from the radical leftist leader, with an EU official reportedly saying there was "nothing to discuss", although Tsipras, Merkel and French President Francois Hollande later spoke by phone.

 The three leaders "took stock of the situation to help move forward the negotiations between Greece and the three (creditor) institutions," a French source said.

 Athens last week withheld a 300-million-euro loan repayment to the IMF, opting instead to group four scheduled tranches into a single payment at the end of the month.

 Tsipras on Friday argued that a "cynical" policy of economic asphyxiation and harsh austerity being applied to Greece would ultimately impact other European states in economic difficulty.