German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for calm after aeuro-area finance ministers' meeting on Greece descended intoacrimony and name-calling.

Finance chiefs meeting in Riga, Latvia, on Friday, let loose atYanis Varoufakis, their Greek counterpart, as they ruled out makinga partial aid payment in exchange for a narrower program ofreforms.

“It's important that we show understanding for each other,”Merkel told a crowd at a campaign event in Bremerhaven, Germany.While all sides are working toward a deal, “we don't know if thiswill work out,” she said.

Attention now returns to Athens where the cash-strappedgovernment needs to pay pensions and salaries to civil servantsbefore the end of the month. In the first week of May, the EuropeanCentral Bank will discuss whether it needs to tighten the rules onemergency funding to Greek banks, and a loan from the InternationalMonetary Fund of about 201 million euros (US$218 million) comesdue.

During Friday's meeting finance ministers said Varoufakis'shandling of the negotiations over revamping the Greek economy inreturn for bailout cash was irresponsible. They accused him ofbeing a time-waster, a gambler, and an amateur, a person familiarwith the conversations said, asking not to be named because thediscussions were private.

“It was a very critical discussion, and it showed a great senseof urgency around the room,” Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutchchairman of the Eurozone finance ministers' group, said at a pressconference after the meeting. Asked if there was any chance of apartial disbursement, he said, “The answer can be very short:No.”

European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi added to thepressure on the Greeks, warning that policy makers may review theconditions of the emergency funding keeping the country's banksafloat.

Euro-area governors will “carefully monitor” the haircutsimposed on Greek banks' collateral when borrowing from the Bank ofGreece, Draghi said, to take into account the “change in theenvironment.” The Governing Council is due to discuss the matter onMay 6, according to two people with knowledge of the talks.

One of the 19-nation euro area's finance ministers urged thebloc to consider drawing up a “plan B” in case the negotiationscollapse, three people with knowledge of the talks said. The personasked not to be named as the discussion was private.

“There is no plan B; there must not be a plan B,” EuropeanEconomic Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said in an interview withBloomberg. “Everybody here is working for the same purpose, whichis Greece staying in the Eurozone.”

– With assistance from Patrick Donahue in Berlin, Richard Bravo,Ben Sills, Jeff Black, Jim Brunsden, Corina Ruhe, Zoe Schneeweiss,Alessandro Speciale, Karl Stagno Navarra, Jonathan Stearns, RainerBuergin, and Patrick Henry in Riga, and Ben Moshinsky inLondon.

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