The end is not in sight.
While the markets have been cautiously optimistic that Friday's EU summit might offer some hope that European leaders are finally grasping the nettle of their sovereign debt crisis, few investors are under the illusion that the meetings will produce anything that in one stroke ends the immediate threat to the eurozone and its constituent economies.
The consensus view is that a disaster should be averted now that Germany and France, the single currency area's two largest economies, are displaying an unprecedented degree of coherence in their message. This has been absent throughout the crisis, with individual countries and institutions publicly breaking ranks before, after and sometimes during summits.
"Merkel and Sarkozy are showing clear determination that they will spearhead a resolution this Friday. They appear to be calling all the shots, Merkel in particular," David Kerns, dealing manager at foreign exchange dealer Moneycorp, said.
"The other 15 countries will have to toe the line. If they don't toe the line, what happens? The breakup of the euro. That is where we are this Friday. If they don't toe the line, it will break up."
"The best we can probably get is a lot of use of words like 'agreement' and 'harmony' and 'singing from the same song sheet' et cetera. If there's limited dissent afterwards then that might be enough to placate the markets that they're on the right track," Alan Wilde, head of fixed income and currency at Baring Asset Management in London, said.
In an ideal world, Wilde added, there would be some announcement around either the merging or concurrent use of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) to give policymakers the firepower to backstop weak economies and the continent's banking sector.
"Ultimately markets would probably be really satisfied if Germany dropped its opposition to the European Central Bank (ECB) stepping into the market and effectively monetising debt, but I just don't think that's going to happen, I think that's a long shot, and probably if people are expecting that, they're going to be disappointed."
Mario Draghi, the ECB's president, appeared to pour cold water on that idea during his press conference following the bank's interest rate decision on Thursday.
Although he did announce a number of measures aimed at freeing up credit in the eurozone, he did not indicate any wavering in the bank's position on directly or indirectly supporting sovereign governments or expanding the current programme of bond buying.
That programme, Draghi said, is "not infinite" and is used only for the transference of monetary policy - i.e. it is not designed to indefinitely prop up failing sovereigns.
European markets plunged immediately after Draghi's remarks. The CAC-40 had fallen 2.18% and the DAX was down 1.65% as the close approached.
While the ECB has to wait for the result of the EU summit negotiations to be completed before making any concrete decision on intervention, either directly through bond buying or indirectly, by lending money to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the timing of the statement was unfortunate. Investors have been trading into an almost unprecedented absence of rumour ahead of the summit, and were always likely to react badly to anything other than a tacit confirmation of a new programme.
Clearing the way for the ECB will likely remain the focus for investors as leaders gather for dinner ahead of the summit.
"I think the odds are a little bit more in favour of them coming up with something that allows us to limp through," Simon Derrick, chief currency strategist at BNY Mellon, said. "The way I read it is that as long as there is some kind of agreement in moving towards treaty change then Draghi will produce sufficient amount of money to - presumably indirectly via the IMF - provide support for Italy and possibly Spain, should it be required.
"One of the main concerns is that historically Germany has resisted that, so that is potentially a stumbling block along the way. If it is, we go back to immediate crisis mode."
The central purpose of the summit is treaty change, including the introduction of automatic sanctions against countries who fail to meet strict budget targets, as well as more harmonisation of tax rates and economic policies across the eurozone.
The lack of these when the single currency was created is ultimately what led to the current crisis, as poorer countries were able to borrow at low rates without maintaining fiscal discipline, while simultaneously losing their ability to artificially increase their competitiveness by devaluing their currency.
Getting these right on Friday would potentially free up the ECB, by convincing Germany and the central bank that they would not be dumping money into a black hole. A show of unity would ease pressure on Italian and Spanish bonds, making those countries better able to manage their debt, if markets believe that the solution is real.
However, treaty change is not a comprehensive solution to the very real short term problems of growth and unsustainable debt.
As James Hughes, senior analyst at foreign exchange broker Alpari, said in an email: "Yet again the headlines state that there is optimism that policy makers will agree on a comprehensive plan to tackle the crisis. However understandably there are a few sceptics out there. This is of course not the first time we have heard this.
"The fear is that we will still hear of no implementation plan to the three-pronged bailout plan that was agreed months back. The talks of a new treaty take steps to make sure this could never happen again but still nothing is being done to solve the problem now. It seems the long term is being dealt with but people forgot about the short term. The short term is what the market cares about."
The "three-pronged" plan was thrashed out at the end of October in late night talks, and combined a 50% haircut on Greek debt, a scaling up of the bail-out funds and a recapitalisation of the banks. It created a surge in optimism which was rapidly and dramatically reversed by the then-prime minister of Greece, George Papandreou, who declared his intention to put the plan to a referendum. Papandreou exited the scene, and the "Grand Plan" faded from sight.
The hope is that both the politicians and the markets have learned their lessons.
"I think people are pragmatic about the politics," Wilde said.
"Probably the short term goal is to get some agreement on how to move the treaty so that they can step in and agree further down the road that one or a combination of these strategies could be deployed. I think the expectation that we're going to get something announced on Friday that goes any way to meeting any of these objectives is probably quite small.
"This is more about moving forward the mechanism for change, displaying to the markets that they understand that the nature of the problem requires someone to compromise, probably Germany, ultimately, and to pull back from brinkmanship."