Having promised the voters to end the painful belt-tightening measures, the Greek government wants to soften the harsh terms of the bailout, but the lenders have been insisting they will not provide new injections without strict therapy.

Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis's first meeting with the 18 partners in the Eurogroup last Wednesday ended in low spirits as the session, which went on for seven hours, failed to produce a joint statement launching technical talks to find a solution.

Nevertheless, the next day Eurogroup president Jeroen Dijsselbloem and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras agreed for experts to draw up a comparative analysis of the current aid package and the proposals by the Greek government which would serve as a basis for today's talks.

Slovenia's position on the stand-off has been that the same rules should apply to all countries in the eurozone although some flexibility, for instance when it comes to certain deadlines, should be possible if convincing reasons are presented for this.

Other items on the agenda of today's Eurogroup meeting are the winter economic forecast and Portugal, as the ministers are expected to give the country the go-ahead for the early repayment of EUR 14bn of the EUR 26.9bn worth of loans it received from the IMF as part of an aid package.