希腊或退出欧元区引民众恐慌

Greeks pulled their cash out of the banks and stocked up with food ahead of a cliffhanger election on Sunday that many citizens fear will result in the country being forced out of the euro.

因为担心本周日紧张的大选后希腊将退出欧元区，希腊民众纷纷奔赴银行取现，并大量囤积食物。

Bankers said up to 800 million euros were leaving major banks daily and retailers² said some of the money was being used to buy pasta（意大利面食） and canned goods in case of shortages, as fears of returning to the drachma were fanned by rumors³ that a radical⁴ leftist leader may win the election.

The last published opinion polls showed the conservative New Democracy party, which backs the 130-billion-euro bailout that is keeping Greece afloat, running neck-and-neck with the leftist SYRIZA party, which wants to cancel the rescue deal.

The European Union and International Monetary⁵ Fund have warned that Greece, which has only enough cash to last for a few weeks, must stick to the conditions of the bailout deal or risk seeing funds cut off.

Fears that Greece will collapse⁶ financially and leave the euro have slowly drained Greek banks over the last two years. Central bank figures show that deposits shrank by about 17 percent, or 35.4 billion euros in 2011 and stood at 165.9 billion euros at end-April.

Bankers said the pace was picking up ahead of the vote, with combined daily deposit outflows from the major banks at 500-800 million euros over the past few days, and 10-30 million euros at smaller banks.

"This includes cash withdrawals⁷, wire transfers and investments into money market funds, German Bunds, US Treasuries⁸ and EIB bonds," said one banker, who spoke⁹ on condition of anonymity¹⁰（匿名） .

Retailers said consumers were stocking up on non-perishable food while almost all other goods were seeing a huge drop in sales as cash-strapped Greeks have no money to spare in the country's fifth year of recession.

"People are terrified by the prospect¹¹ of returning to the drachma and some believe it's good to fill their cupboard with food products," said Vassilis Korkidis, head of the ESEE retail¹ federation¹².

"It's over the top, we must not panic. Filling the cupboard with food doesn't mean we will escape the crisis," he said.

Supermarkets said they did not see a rise in profits as people spend less money. But sales of staples¹³ like pasta have gone up.