Greece has also asked for a two-year extension to an EU-IMF deadline of 2014 for Greece to reduce its budget deficit to 2.1pc from 9.3pc in 2011. Jan Kees De Jager, the Dutch finance ministers, insisted that there was "no alternative" to the painful austerity outside minor adjustments to the timetable of cuts. "With smarter measures then you can realise more, that is better, but an alternative to hard, painful reform, that alternative is not there," he said. Maria Fekter, Austria's finance minister, warned Greece that two months of political turmoil meant that the Greek government would have to catch up, not slacken off the pace of cuts. "We will have to see how much time Greece missed due to its election campaign, if it missed too much, Greece will have to work even harder," she said. A eurozone diplomat said: "Greece has to realise that we have to win elections too and any more money from our taxpayers for Greeks is unsellable." Vassilis Rapanos, the head of the Greece's national bank, was yesterday appointed as Greek finance minister but his chair was filled at the Luxembourg eurozone meeting last night by Giorgos Zanias, his predecessor.