Eurozone leaders were fighting to keep near-bankrupt Greece in the economic bloc on Sunday, after the European Union canceled a planned summit of all 28 EU leaders that would have been needed in case of a "Grexit."
In return, leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will be required to enact key legislation in parliament on Monday to start restoring the broken trust of his partners in the 19-nation currency union to win a third bailout, ministers said.
European Council president Donald Tusk announced that he had called off the tentatively planned meeting of EU heads of state and government, saying the eurozone summit to start at 10 a.m. ET would "last until we conclude talks on Greece".
Eurozone finance ministers resumed on Sunday a meeting suspended after nine hours of acrimonious debate on Greece's application for another three-year loan on the basis of reform proposals Tsipras accepted after long resisting.
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Several hardline countries voiced support for a German government paper that recommended Greece take a five-year "time-out" from the eurozone unless it accepted and swiftly implemented much tougher conditions, notably by locking state assets to be privatized in an independent trust to pay down debt.
Argument became so heated that eurozone chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem decided to adjourn at midnight and resume Sunday morning to allow tempers to cool.
"The main obstacle to moving forward is a lack of trust," Italian Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan told reporters. "I would like to see the Greek government take concrete actions starting tomorrow in parliament to implement measures that are needed for Greece in the first place."
The ministers agreed in principle to seek ways to ease Greece's debt burden by extending loan maturities and other steps stopping short of a "haircut" or writedown, provided Athens first implements key reforms of taxation, pensions, labor markets and public administration.