Jean-Claude Juncker briefly abandoned his “sociable uncle” persona on Tuesday to thoroughly vilify the Tsipras government, saying the latter is misleading Greek voters by misrepresenting EU representatives’ positions in recent negotiations with cash-strapped Greece.

The powerful head of the European Commission, who up until last week was one of Athens’ most vocal supporters on the European stage, said he decided to stop negotiations over the weekend because the positions of the radical leftist government were “leading nowhere”.

“… I’m not in favor of increasing VAT on medicaments and electricity; I do think that this would be a major mistake if Greece would be obliged to do that … I think the debate in Greece and outside Greece would be easier if the Greek government would tell exactly what the Commission, being one of the three institutions in charge of all this, are really proposing,” he stressed, throwing a “curveball” at the Tsipras government’s “spin machine”.