BRUSSELS: Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras pleaded with European counterparts at a summit in Brussels Thursday for cash to keep his country afloat and in the euro as officials warned that the situation was becoming “dangerous.”

European Union leaders also debated whether to extend economic sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine conflict until December.

While Greece is not officially on the agenda for the meeting of the bloc’s 28 leaders, a senior EU official said it was the “elephant in the room” amid fears of a catastrophic “Grexit” from the single currency.

Chancellor Angela Merkel told the German Parliament Thursday that there was no reason to “despair” over Greece, although Europe’s most powerful leader played down the chance of any deal at the summit.

“It is absolutely clear that nobody can expect a solution to be found this evening in Brussels or on Monday evening,” when she is due to meet radical new leader Tsipras in Berlin, Merkel said.

EU President Donald Tusk has convened special talks on the sidelines of the summit on Thursday night among Tsipras, Merkel and French President Francois Hollande, at the request of the Greek premier, Tusk’s spokesman told AFP.

The 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.

Leftist leader Tsipras, who won elections in January, urged them to accept Greece’s promises of reform in return for relaxing the terms of its EU-IMF bailout, and to release vital funds to help his country avoid a looming cash crunch. But Juncker said he would “repeat (to Tsipras) what I have said twice before: Greece must undertake the necessary reforms, Greece must ensure that the commitments it made to the Eurogroup in 2012 and more recently are followed up.”

European Parliament President Martin Schulz said that the situation in Greece was “dangerous” and that Athens needed “two or three billion” euros in the short term.