European Commissioner Pierre Moscovici  confirmed previous media reports of a near … physical altercation between former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis and Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem, before the start of a Feb. 16 Eurogroup meeting.

In an article appearing in the French daily “Liberation”, the newspaper reminds that its correspondent first cited a scuffle between the two men on Feb. 18 in his column. However, both Dijsselbloem and Varoufakis subsequently denied the incident ever occurred.

Moscovici told the French newspaper on Friday that he was the one who had intervened to stop the two from coming to actual blows.

“It happened at the Feb. 16 meeting between Dijsselbloem and Varoufakis and myself. Varoufakis tried to react to the presentation by Dijsselbloem of a document. We entered into the meeting and there was a moment of physical confrontation with the two nearly getting into a brawl. One accused the other of being a liar and I was forced to intervene. I managed to separate them. But I did not manage to bring them back together again. They never spoke to each other after that,” said Moscovici.