European leaders have gone back and forth over the sanctity of bond contracts as the crisis escalated. A November 2010 pledge to rule out writedowns unravelled a month later, only to be reaffirmed in July. The latest about-face came after seven countries including Germany, Europe's dominant economy, weighed calling for Greek writedowns of as much as 50 percent, two European officials said.

"The reopening is probably going to be quite bad for the markets," said Peter Schaffrik, head of European interest-rate strategy at Royal Bank of Canada's RBC Capital Markets in London. "There is a big dent to European credibility."

The ministers also pushed back a decision on the release of Greece's next 8 billion-euro loan installment until after Oct. 13. It was the second postponement of a vote originally slated for yesterday as part of the 110 billion-euro lifeline granted to Greece last year.

Scrounging for savings, the Greek cabinet on Oct. 2 announced 6.6 billion euros of cuts, mostly by slashing public payrolls. Greece will "very likely" have to make extra reductions for 2013 and 2014, a two-year phase that will be the focus of the rest of the review by European Union, European Central Bank and IMF officials, EU Economic and Monetary Commissioner Olli Rehn said.

Greece's revised 2011 deficit goal may be 8.5 percent of gross domestic product compared with a previous target of 7.6 percent, Rehn said. He called the new target "plausible" and lauded Greece's "important steps" toward further savings next year.

While an Oct. 13 meeting to decide on the next payout was canceled, Juncker said he is "nevertheless optimistic when it comes to the issue of the disbursement" by the end of October. The decision now dovetails with an Oct. 17-18 summit of European government leaders to address the crisis. Juncker said Greece can pay its bills in the meantime.

"Greece is not the scapegoat of the euro zone," Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said yesterday. "Greece is a country with structural difficulties."

Finance ministers held a first discussion over how to further enhance the region's rescue fund, setting aside a plea by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble to postpone that debate until the remaining countries have endorsed the fund's latest upgrade.

Fourteen of the 17 euro countries have approved the reinforcement, which will empower the European Financial Stability Facility to buy bonds on the primary and secondary markets, offer precautionary credit lines and enable capital infusions for banks.

Credit Lines