Spain’s El Pais newspaper reported that Sarkozy had slammed his fist on
the table when he made the threat, which forced German Chancellor
Angela Merkel to drop her long-standing opposition to bailing out
Athens.

But deputy German government spokeswoman Sabine Heimbach
denied Sarkozy had delivered the threat. “That is without any basis,”
she told reporters.

El Pais said Sarkozy had made the threat at
a meeting of European leaders on May 7. It cited comments by Spanish
Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to members of his party, as
relayed by people present at that meeting.

A spokesman for the
Spanish prime minister’s office confirmed the meeting between Zapatero
and other socialist party members, but could not immediately confirm
what was said there. Sarkozy’s office had no comment.

Sarkozy
had demanded a “commitment from everyone to support Greece… or France
would reconsider its position in the euro,” according to one source
cited by El Pais.

Another source present at the meeting between
Zapatero and his party members and cited by the paper said: “Sarkozy
ended up banging his fist on the table and threatening to leave the
euro … This forced Angela Merkel to give in and reach an agreement.”

The
EU and the IMF have agreed the 110 billion euro ($140bn) rescue plan
for Greece. Germany, which must shoulder a good deal of the burden, had
been reluctant to commit itself to a plan because of strong public
opposition at home.

Zapatero told his party members that France,
Italy and Spain had formed a united front against Germany at the
Brussels meeting and that Sarkozy had threatened to break up a
traditional French-German “hold” on the rest of Europe, according to El
Pais.