Gavin Hewitt: "EU officials are playing it tough... For the moment this second bailout is on hold"

The head of the eurozone countries has downgraded a eurozone finance ministers meeting on Wednesday, saying 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 political parties on a programme of proposed cuts, Mr Juncker was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.

He said that "against this background, I have decided to convene ministers to a conference call tomorrow in order to discuss the outstanding issues".

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.