The Greek government is likely to face a solid bloc of resistance as it embarks on a new round of bailout negotiations today.

Despite a resounding 61.31 per cent of the Greek electorate saying No to the deal offered by the IMF and EU, sources in Brussels said eurozone ministers appear to be more resolute than ever to resist the Greek offensive.

European leaders were short on statements yesterday but European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said the negative answer at the referendum in Greece had weakened the country’s negotiating position with creditors.

Nonetheless, the Greek government has pledged to make fresh proposals this morning which, it feels should be a good basis for talks.

Who is going to present those proposals this morning was not entirely clear at the time of writing.

Yanis Varoufakis, the unorthodox Finance Minister who has been the face of Greece’s battle with the EU over the past months resigned abruptly yesterday morning, saying he felt his departure would help find a solution.

His successor was named as Euclid Tsakalotos but, at the time of writing, the Greek embassy in Malta was still unsure whether he would be attending today’s meeting or the Economy Minister Georgios Stathakis.

A phone call between Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss Sunday’s No vote was particularly unwelcome. The meeting of finance ministers will be followed by the summit of leaders in the afternoon.

Commenting on the departure of his Greek colleague, Maltese finance minister Edward Scicluna said the resignation “helps”. Mr Varoufakis’s caustic comments had caused personal friction between him and colleagues from the eurozone and lending institutions.

But in a style that has become his trademark, his parting shot suggested he would not lose much sleep over his unpopularity with that particular group, saying in a blog announcing his resignation that he “shall wear the creditors’ loathing with pride”.

Later in the day, Prof. Scicluna told Bloomberg that negotiations were carried out by people and when people got irritated, negotiations got hard.

Speaking about the referendum result, Prof. Scicluna said that, had similar referenda been held in Ireland, Cyprus and Portugal (which also got bailout help) the result would probably be the same, if not higher.

“So I am not impressed with the 60 per cent, but it does tell that the people do not know the realities and the alternatives.” He said nobody within the eurogroup (of EU finance ministers) and on the Greek side wanted to pull the plug on Greece’s membership of the eurozone.

“However, what is happening is that we are sliding towards that point.”

The issue now, he said, was whether the people of the creditor countries wanted to lend more money to Greece. “The people of the lender countries are going to be asked not whether the money of the last tranche of €7.2 billion would be paid, because that almost appears trivial, but they will be asked about a whole new bailout,” he said.

“The hole has got bigger and bigger and then when you look reality in the face and say: I am going back to my country, are we going  to ask our people to borrow again in order to lend to Greece when we do not have certainty of getting our money back?”

Asked whether there would be any debt forgiveness, Prof Scicluna said he could not pre-empt what would happen. Much would depend on whether the proposed package remained and whether it would lead to a turnaround. Everybody was trying to be cooperative, he said.

What we do not want to see is tricks and brinkmanship, he said in a jibe at the antics the Greek government has been accused of putting on. One trick certainly seems to have worked, at least on the political level. Virtually all surveys and analyses predicted a tight race between the No and Yes camps but in the end the choice campaigned for by Mr Tsiprias’s Syriza party won by a whopping 20 per cent margin.

The political shockwaves were immediate – his main rival, the conservative leader Antonis Samaras, resigned. Moreover, throughout the day yesterday Mr Tsipras engaged in talks with the leaders of the Opposition and emerged with their commitment to back him in the fresh talks with the country’s lenders.

Meanwhile, the Greek Ambassador to Malta, Theodoros Daskarolis, said his government’s stand was essentially the same as it was before the referendum. “We are prepared to make concessions, as we were before the referendum. What we wanted then is what we want now, which is that we are prepared to meet reasonable demands that will still guarantee economic growth,” he said.

Incidentally, this argument, which has been the mantra of the Tsipras government for months, has been reinforced in recent days by an admission of the International Monetary Fund chief, Christine Lagarde, that her institution had “failed to realise the damage austerity would do to Greece”

In an assessment of the rescue conducted jointly with the European Central Bank and the European Commission, the IMF said it had been forced to override its normal rules for providing financial assistance in order to put money into Greece.

“The [May 2010] bailout deal basically killed the economy. We need to correct this and this is what the Greek government has been saying all along,” Mr Daskarolis said.