Euro zone leaders promised Greece on July 21 a new emergency loan package worth 109 billion euros. But the payout of the money depends on finding a solution for Finland's demands to get collateral from Greece for more loan guarantees from Helsinki.
"A technical solution is within reach," French Finance Minister Francois Baroin told reporters. Euro zone sources said however, that a deal is likely only in early October because of its complexity.
EU finance ministers also agreed on Saturday that European banks must be strengthened in the follow-up to July stress tests, as a report said a "systemic" crisis in sovereign debt now threatened a new credit crunch.
"We reached the conclusion that we need to make our financial system more robust," Spanish Economy Minister Elena Salgado told reporters.
The agreement does not mean European banks are likely to get large, additional capital injections from public coffers -- it is just an acknowledgement of the results of the European bank stress tests in July.
The tests showed a financing gap for banks of only 6 billion euros -- a sum many investors believe could be much higher if the debt crisis worsens, and which is to be primarily covered by private capital.
(Reporting by Ecofin team in Wroclaw and George Georgiopoulos in Athens; writing by Jan Strupczewski
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