Economy and finance ministers of the Eurogroup are seeking Monday to close a difficult agreement on the future of the Greek bailout, for which they must overcome the wide divergence between Athens and other Euro partners.
The meeting takes place after Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varufakis huddled Wednesday with his European counterparts in Brussels, and technical talks between Athens and the "troika" creditors Friday in an attempt to find common ground.
However, sources close to the negotiations on the Greek side told Efe news agency that these contacts "did not made any real progress", and the international creditors "have insisted on the implementation of the current programme" with the same conditions as the rescue package.
The Greek bailout programme is scheduled to end Feb 28, while the leftist Athens government is demanding another agreement to replace it temporarily, until reaching a permanent deal with the creditors by this summer.
Athens says that financing the temporary agreement would be through increasing the treasury bill by eight billion euros ($9 billion), along with 1.9 billion euros more claimed by the Greek government from the European Central Bank.
The new Greek government led by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras also wants to change the European primary surplus targets, so that this year it is reduced from 3 percent to 1.5 percent.
