ATHENS (AFP) - Greece will seek "common ground" with its European partners on solving its bailout and debt woes, European Parliament chairman Martin Schulz said Thursday after meeting new Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

"There are certain fears in Europe that Tsipras will follow his own path, but today I discovered that is not the case," Schulz said at a joint press conference after becoming the first foreign dignitary to meet the new government.

Tsipras' new hard-left government began its term by scrapping key privatisations and other reforms required under its 240-billion-euro (S$367 billion) bailout programme, drawing rebukes from Germany and China.

Athens also complained to Brussels this week over allegedly not being consulted when the EU threatened new sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine.