Eurozone Greece talks 'cancelled

The head of the Eurozone countries has downgraded an EU finance ministers meeting on Wednesday because Greece has not yet given the necessary assurances about its austerity plan. Ministers, who had demanded Greece find an extra 325m euros of savings, had been set to meet in Brussels. But Eurogroup President Jean-Claude Juncker said the talks would be replaced by a conference call. He said technical work with Greece was still needed "in a number of areas". Finance ministers had not received assurances from leaders of Greek politcal parties on a programme of proposed cuts, Mr Juncker was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency. As well as 17 ministers from nations that use the euro, the president of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi and the Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, Olli Rehn, had also been due to attend the meeting. The latest 130bn-euro bailout ($169.5bn, £108.7bn) was agreed in principle by EU leaders in October, conditional on Greece adopting further measures to cut its deficit and restructure its economy. On Sunday, Greek MPs approved extra cutbacks, but parties had to expel more than 40 deputies for failing to back the bill.