Eurozone shows 'political will' to give Greece new chance: Greek finance minister

Eurozone nations showed the "political will" to help Greece reach a bailout deal at emergency talks in Brussels Tuesday despite a referendum that rejected creditors' terms, new Greek finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos said.

Tsakalotos, who replaced maverick Yanis Varoufakis in the job on Monday, told reporters there had been "progress" in meetings with his 18 counterparts from the single currency and added there was "political will to give Greece a new chance".

Asked why he had not brought a new set of Greek bailout reform proposals for the finance minister talks, which came ahead of a crucial eurozone summit, the Oxford-educated minister said it was "more complicated than that".

"We'll see if it (the presentation of Greece's proposals) will happen this evening or tomorrow," he added.

The Greek government said in Athens earlier it would present Wednesday a "common ground document" for a debt deal that would "take into account" the concerns of international creditors.

It is also set to make a formal request to the EU's bailout fund for a third rescue programme, Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem said earlier.

A European source close to the talks said that Tsakalotos had "passed his rite of passage" during his meeting with his eurozone colleagues, adding that he showed "a lot of intelligence and enormous modesty".

The Greek minister was looking for a new bailout programme of "two or three years" but that would take a long time to discuss, meaning there needed to be "bridge financing" for coming weeks, the source said.

Eurozone leaders could hold a new summit on Sunday to discuss the next steps if lower-level talks in coming days go well, the source added.

But, underlining the divisions within the EU, another European official said there was "disappointment among finance ministers" that Tsakalotos had not provided any concrete proposals.

Tuesday's summit was designed to "start a last ditch effort to save this situation".