EUROZONE ministers last night cast doubt over a new Greek austerity plan as they met to decide on a new bailout fund.
Finance ministers arriving for talks in Brussels warned there would be no immediate green light for the rescue package, and said Athens must prove itself first.
European Union partners and the International Monetary Fund have been exasperated by a string of broken promises and weeks of wrangling over the terms of a €130 billion (£109bn) bailout, with time running out to avoid a chaotic default.
Luxembourg's Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the so-called eurogroup of finance ministers, said he doubted whether the Greek plan was ready for approval.
As he arrived in Belgium, he said: "I do not have reasons to believe there will be a definitive deal this evening."
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said the Greek plan was "not at a stage where it can be signed off".
He told one reporter waiting outside the EU building: "You don't need to wait around because there will be no decision."
Few details of the plan have been released, but unions have called a 48-hour strike in protest.
"It's up to the Greek Government to provide concrete actions through legislation and other actions to convince its European partners that a second programme can be made to work," EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said.
Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos flew to Brussels after all-night talks involving Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, the leaders of the three coalition parties and chief EU and IMF inspectors left one senstive issue – pension cuts – unresolved.
A final €300 million gap was bridged yesterday in talks with the troika of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF, and endorsed by the party leaders.
The euro and European stocks rose briefly on the news, which appeared to remove temporarily the risk of a hard default by the eurozone's most indebted country, facing a major bond redemption deadline on March 20.
The risk premium investors charge for holding Italian, Spanish and Belgian bonds fell.
"We now need the political endorsement of the Eurogroup for the final steps," Mr Venizelos said.
However, several ministers made clear they wanted guarantees and practical action first.
"Greece has to implement what it has not implemented from the first programme before we can decide on a second," Germany's Schaeuble said.
Mr Venizelos said Athens also had an outline deal with private creditors on a bond swap in which they would give up some 70% of the value of their Greek bond hold- ings, reducing Athens' €350bn debt pile by about €100bn.
ECB President Mario Draghi said he was "quite confident" all the components of a Greek debt deal would fall into place and hinted the central bank could provide indirect help without breaching a treaty ban on financing governments.
An IMF spokesman called the agreement "an important initial step" but said IMF managing director Christine Lagarde would seek assurances Greece would stick to the agreed policies whatever the outcome of a general election likely in April.
The measures will mean a big fall in the living standards of many Greeks, now in the fifth year of a deep recession.
Deputy Labour Minister Yannis Koutsoukos, a socialist, resigned over a package he said would be "painful for working people".
Ahead of a 48-hour strike today and tomorrow against the reforms, secretary general of the ADEDY union Ilias Iliopoulos said: "The painful measures that create misery for the youth, the unemployed and pensioners do not leave us much room. We won't accept them. There will be a social uprising."
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