The EU's top eurozone official yesterday warned that not enough progress had been made in difficult debt talks with Greece to allow the payout of sorely-needed bailout funds and demanded deeper reforms.

The statement by Valdis Dombrovskis came as the eurozone's 19 finance ministers met in Riga to discuss the worrying situation in Greece and dashed hopes that a deal ending months of deadlock and avert a dangerous cash crunch would be reached during Friday's talks.

"Progress in technical negotiations has not been sufficient to reach any conclusion during this Eurogroup here in Riga," said Dombrovskis, the EU Commissioner for the Euro, as he arrived for the meeting with eurozone finance ministers.

Athens is fast running out of money to both pay its creditors and run the everyday government, raising the risk of a default and a potentially chaotic exit from the single currency bloc.

But ministers refuse to unlock any cash without a comprehensive list of reforms that the far left Syriza government has so far refused to agree, forcing Athens to expropriate funds from local state agencies and authorities to stay afloat.

"Progress has been made, I hope a lot of progress will be reported. I'm going to listen to the institutions first today," said Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem as he arrived for the talks.