January 2, 2012
Groundhog day is not normally associated with Greece. It's part of American folklore: a guide to the forthcoming weather depending on whether the pesky rodent pops out of its burrow on 2 February each year; and a Hollywood movie where a TV weatherman is forced to live the same day over and over again.
But as the government in Athens goes into its fourth week of negotiations with its private sector creditors, every day in Greece feels like one of Bill Murray's in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. A sense of déjà vu is dominating the crisis – a pas de deux between Greece and its bondholders that was first mooted last July. Every day Greek officials and EU mandarins predict a deal "within days"; every Friday they pledge an agreement by the end of the weekend.
Thursday was the same: "We are very close and hopefully will reach an agreement within the next days or weeks," said Deutsche Bank chief executive Josef Ackermann.
What was certain, said Pandelis Kapsis, the Greek government spokesman, was that Thursday was "important". Just "three or four thorns" continued to dog talks between the debt-stricken nation and its "troika" of lenders, and they might be resolved quite swiftly.
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