A Greek exit from the eurozone would not dump the single currency union in crisis, European Commission vice president Neelie Kroes said Tuesday.

"It is not a train crash if someone leaves the eurozone," Kroes, also commissioner for digital technology, told De Volkskrant daily newspaper while stressing she was not in favour of Greece going back to the drachma.

"It is still being said that if you let one country leave or ask them to leave, then the entire structure collapses. That is simply not true."

Kroes accused the Greek authorities of not showing sufficient goodwill in efforts to solve the debt crisis, telling the daily: "It is starting to be a Greek mantra: 'We cannot, we don't want to."

"There is no guarantee that Greece is heading in the right direction," she said, adding the reforms undertaken by the government so far "leave much to be desired."

Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos was due Tuesday to meet heads of the socialist, conservative and far-right parties that form his unwieldy coalition, for talks on avoiding debt default.

They have to agree on further austerity measures sought by debtors in exchange for a new bailout.