Imagine a European politician playing the part of Gloucester in a modern version of King Lear. “As flies to wanton boys are we to the markets,” he might lament. “They kill us for their sport.”

To blame the cruelty, irresponsibility or profit instinct of financial markets for the eurozone’s debt troubles is, however, to underestimate the problem of miscommunication on the part of certain politicians and other policymakers. Time and time again, the Europeans display a distressing talent for fuelling market tensions with imprudent statements and half-formed proposals that unnerve investors and intensify uncertainty about where the euro is heading.

One example is the statement of Herman Van Rompuy, the European Union’s full-time president, on November 16 to the effect that the eurozone’s debt crisis was putting into question the EU’s very survival. It fell to Olli Rehn, the EU monetary affairs commissioner, to deliver an oblique rebuke, telling the European Parliament on Monday: