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More than two years into the European debt crisis and 19 European summits later, an all-too-familiar pattern has established itself. Generally, these summits are convened in response to an intensification of a crisis, and generally they come up with just enough of a policy response to defuse the crisis for a short while. However, once markets figure out that the policy response merely addressed the symptoms rather than the underlying causes of the crisis, it soon re-emerges in a more virulent form.

Last week’s European summit seems to have followed this pattern and it remains to be seen whether this time around it buys Europe as much market calm as previous summits.