The European Central Bank still refuses to do so, and the EFSF bail-out fund cannot legally do so until all national parliaments ratify the summit deal to widen its remit. Yet these chambers have shut down for the summer. Europe’s leaders have gone on holiday. The €440bn EFSF is in any case too small. The bond vigilantes broadly agree that the EFSF needs €2 trillion in pre-emptive firepower to forestall a twin crisis in Italy and Spain, though quite how France might pay for this without being drawn into the maelstrom itself is an open question.