A Nobel Prize (category to be decided) surely awaits whoever solves the eurozone’s sovereign debt crisis. There will be no prizes, however, for the barrage of ad hoc solutions devised so far – bond-buying by the European Central Bank, bank bail-outs disguised as sovereign rescues, a temporary

triple-A funding facility. Investors appear to have decided that these are mere Band-Aids for the gaping wound created by the bursting of the sovereign credit bubble.

The latest suggestion – common eurozone bond issues – has more merit, but alas it has barely been given the time of day by Germany. The “E-bond” proposal – by Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg’s prime minister and grand old man of European financial affairs, and Giulio Tremonti, Italy’s finance minister – has been around before, and may yet gain traction. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s objection, that “treaties don’t allow it”, is not insurmountable.