Eurozone: where we are now

Well, there's to be another summit, giving hope to the millions of people who...er...are interested. And Our Dear Leaders, conscious that the people want something new, are, this time, not having lunch. But dinner. I'm sure my readers will join me in hoping they get nice things to eat and drink. It will be in Brussels where both the chips and the chocolate are excellent.

Let's see what has been going on since the last success.

At the summit at the end of June, as we all know, there was a coup against Chancellor Merkel, orchestrated by Mr. Monti of Italy, which made the heir to Bismarck cave in on whether Spain's banks could borrow money rather than Europe giving lending it to the Spanish Government which would lend it on to the banks. Woo-hoo! Also the ECB would be able to invest, if that's the right term, in Spanish and Italian bonds.

Now we learn from an EU official that in fact the Spanish Government would have to guarantee these loans. What the official thought this guarantee was worth he didn't say.

In the meantime we hear from Finland that it has not agreed that the rescue funds should intervene on secondary markets, as Mr Monti said, and that it would not stay in the euro if it meant bailing out other countries (a bit late for that, I should have thought). Holland seems to agree, while Germany still hasn't even finalised the existence of the rescue fund.

Further south, you will remember that Greece elected a new government which was in favour of the bailouts in principle but would aim for gentle renegotiation. After the first meeting with  the Troika, the ECB, IMF and EU, the finance minister said they couldn't go for renegotiation since they hadn't fulfilled their previous promises (in fact they have hardly done anything towards fulfilling them). As I warned before, there is now likely to be widespread civil unrest, as Syriza-organised protest loses its patience with what can only be described as a bunch of liars.

Then Southern Cyprus, which has run out of cash. It is one of the three presidents of Europe, for the second half of this year, so at least there will be one vote in favour of bailing the blighters out. Christofias, the Prime Minister, has said they should receive generous treatment because all they did wrong was invest in Greek government bonds which were..er..worthless.

The markets were cock-a-hoop when they pulled off the last massive success, then enthusiasm declined and now Italy is paying more than 6% for its money and Spain is paying more than 7%.

I wonder what unanimous success story they can achieve on Monday night?