As the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, arrived in Strasbourg to brief MEPs on talks with the UK and take in Jean-Claude Juncker’s state of the union speech in the European parliament, he will have been satisfied by the narrative in the British media.

His suggestion on Monday at a conference in Bled, Slovenia, that if both sides are “realistic” an agreement on the terms of the UK’s exit could be reached by November will be familiar to any vaguely tuned-in Brexit watcher. He wants a deal on the withdrawal agreement this autumn on the issues of citizens rights, the divorce bill and, crucially, Northern Ireland, among others, and some pragmatism from the British will enable it. No surprises there.

But the comments did set some useful hares running. The jittery pound did one of its now regular jumps in value to the dollar. The former chief secretary to the Treasury Greg Hands, a Tory MP, tweeted his satisfaction that the EU was waking up to the economic importance of the UK to the continent. While former Tory whip, Michael Fabricant, suggested: “As we approach the deadline, the # EU is starting to bend.”

This is all good comfort food for Theresa May as she approaches the Tory party conference, and the most difficult months of her difficult premiership. It sounds like progress.

Downing Street, as with the currency traders, will gratefully jump on it. But it is also useful to Barnier, who in Bled laid off from his recent bashing of the Chequers proposals. As miscast as the Tory MPs’ reading of the situation is today, they are playing their role in Brussels’ attempt to prepare the ground for May to blink in what is in reality a rather one-sided staring match.

Barnier has already had his say on Chequers. The EU’s member states will not accept its central planks: a facilitated customs arrangement that will allow the UK to have an independent trade policy, while enjoying the benefits of frictionless trade, and a common rule book on agricultural and industrial goods. But he does like much of what else is in Chequers, in particular on foreign policy and security, with the UK having softened its position on the jurisdiction of the European court of justice.

And he likes that the British government actually now has a policy. The prime minister did what she had promised she would do, and made a decision. It cost her two cabinet ministers. And she has survived. She is going to have to make some more big decisions in the coming weeks, and she has now shown that she is willing to do so.

The EU isn’t blinking. So, does the prime minister move towards the Norway-plus option, with full alignment, not only on goods but also services, and accept that the UK needs a customs union? Does she retreat from the EU orbit, accept a Canada-style free trade deal, to please the Brexiters, and work with Brussels to take the sting out of their solution for avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland, in which a border is effectively drawn in the Irish sea?

In Brussels, there is considerable doubt that May has the ability to deliver on either of these options. They could offer to fudge it sufficiently that she doesn’t necessarily have to make that call, should that be the only way the prime minister can see a way forward. The political declaration on the future is a non-binding document that comes along with main deal. Its only job, as far as Brussels is concerned, is to help May deliver the withdrawal agreement. Whatever the future will bring, and the nature of the majority May is seeking to fashion in the Commons, no one in Brussels is expecting anything from the UK government until after Tory party conference.

The EU summit in Salzburg next week will not substantially change anything either for all the talk of a change in Barnier’s mandate from the EU27. Observers should merely expect another attempt to engineer a jump in the pound and inflate some optimism in the British debate. The crunch decisions will have to be made soon enough, after all.

Someone needs to blink, or a no deal beckons. The EU is pretty certain it won’t be them. If the prime minister is going to do so, she needs to be in Downing Street to do it.