Euro zone finance ministers chief Jean-Claude Juncker says it is 'obvious' that Greece needs a second bail-out, due to its massive debts, but the size of the rescue remains unclear.
He was speaking to reporters in Luxembourg after Germany gave its backing to fresh aid as long as private banks roll over their existing loans to the Greek government.
As president of the Eurogroup, which brings together the zone's finance ministers, Juncker said: 'I am in the middle of negotiating a global solution for Greece.'
But the European Central Bank again said it opposed forcing private creditors to take part in debt relief for Greece. ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet signalled the hard line at the bank's monthly news conference.
Despite last year's landmark €110 billion bail-out by euro zone partners and the International Monetary Fund, Greece's €350 billion debt load has only increased as a deeper than expected recession last year affected tax revenues.
Diplomats have said that a requirement for new funding is estimated at more than €90 billion - a third to come from euro zone nations and the IMF, a third from sell-offs of Greek state assets and the final €30 billion or so from the bank rollovers.
The latter two components are uncertain, and it is also uncertain whether the headline 90 billion figure includes remaining tranches of the existing €110 billion package.
Earlier, hopes for growth in the Greek economy were dashed as first-quarter growth figures were revised heavily downwards.
First quarter growth figures were slashed to just 0.2% from the initial 0.8%, showing the economy slowing to a halt.
Worse still, after a series of sales tax hikes last year, inflation is still at 3.3% - although in clear decline.
Time is running short as Greece has warned it will be unable to pay next month's bills without a loan instalment of €12 billion earmarked under the original EU-IMF rescue package.
The government hopes to push a fresh reform package through parliament, where it holds a slim six-seat majority, by the end of June. Ministers enlisted to brief the ruling party's MPs on the package received a dressing-down on Tuesday, with many internal critics arguing that the recovery recipe mandated by Greece's creditors is ill-thought.
The original plan was designed to help Athens regain access to borrowing markets but investors remain unconvinced and credit rates have risen instead of falling. Faced with opposition and resistance from unions, the government dawdled for more than three months on a €50 billion privatisation drive announced in February.
Portugal's economy weak in first quarter
Official figures show that the Portuguese economy shrank by 0.6% in the first quarter of this year, after falling by the same amount in the last quarter of last year, owing to a slump in consumption.
This was a slight improvement on the first estimate in the middle of May which showed gross national product contracting by 0.7%. THe figures also showed an annual drop of 0.6% in output.
