“Let me out….let me out….”

In the light of further catatonic circularity in Athens, Italian 10-year bond yields edged up to 5.8% this morning, and Spanish 10s to 5%. The Euro weakened against the Dollar, and shares in eurobanks fell. In the light of this, the manager of Radio Luxembourg Jean-Claude Juncker told the media that Greece “can no longer expect solidarity from its eurozone partners”. The markets, meanwhile, have been pretty clear about the lack of anything solid in the eurozone for some  time. The lack of liquidity in particular has got quite a few expert observers worried. That, and the way Mario Draghi keeps turning on the hose, but after a few weeks the liquidity river is dry again.

One could hardly accuse the situation in Greece of lacking liquidity. Prime Minister Lucas Papademos said he had reached ‘tentative’ agreement with the main Parties about accepting more Troika demands, which in Papaspeak means ‘zero’ – an extrapolation confirmed when Antonis Samaras, leader of the second-biggest party New Democracy, said he would “fight to avoid any further  austerity measures” – although the Troika has said “no austerity, no deal”.

The Greek trade unions have said they will not give way on more employment reforms either, and Brussels in turn has said, “No reforms, no deal”. So the two biggest public-sector and private-sector union groups, ADEDY and GSEE, have called a 24-hour general strike for tomorrow to protest.

Even Evangelo Venizelos can’t call that “one small step away”. He has thus taken a step backwards and is now “on the razor’s edge”. That much weight on a razor’s edge doesn’t bear thinking about.

Of the IIF’s Charles Dallara – and the “active” talks still taking place with him – we know nothing. He told the Athenian media yesterday afternoon that he “felt confident” but there was little guidance as to what he might be confident about. All Dallara has ever said is that he is confident, so this latest reiteration isn’t news. The reality is that bondholder negotiations have been parked while the EU focuses on threatening Greece, and saying it isn’t feeling at all confident. But then a few minutes later, it has to issue more statements saying that while it doesn’t feel confident about Greece, it feels supremely confident about Italy and Spain.

In fact as a general rule, the minute Brussels expresses confidence in something, it immediately becomes more expensive to  fund. Brussels spin doctors are bombarded daily by telephone calls from EU politicians begging them not to express confidence in their countries. The only exceptions are Greek politicians; so it could be that Jean-Claude Juncker is merely trying to be helpful.

In just over six weeks, the Greek debt negotiations have broken everything: deadlines, vows of confidentiality, IMF rules, non-news, and even down. But they still haven’t  finished, and they may never do so. It may wind up like the Korean War, where the conflict ends but the peace conference somehow gets forgotten. The talks may break up – rather like the eurozone, really – but there will be no breakthrough as such. Instead, all things Hellenic will remain in the infinite Now: which, oddly enough, Buddhists describe as the razor’s edge of time. How apt that would be.