Today was supposed to be the day Greece and its private bondholders reached a deal on how big a write down, or "haircut," the creditors would take.

But talks broke-up over the weekend and the outcome is not clear, as Greek newspaper eKathimerini reports.

The Tobin Tax, or Financial Transaction Tax, is controversial within the EU - Britain says it won't sign up for an EU wide levy - and within German Chancellor Angela Merkel's right-wing coalition government where the minority partners, the FDP, are against the idea.

But according to an article in today's Suddeutsche Zeitung, Merkel is now throwing her weight behind a Tobin Tax.

You may have thought the Greek crisis was pretty much over. After all the headlines from last November were: Greek bondholders agree to take a haircut and the country's Prime Minister George Papandreou resigns to be replaced by a technocrat named Lucas Papademos, who is more congenial to the needs of the EU's leadership in Brussels, and more important, to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

But as focus shifted to Italy and now to France, the Greek situation has remained bogged down in details. This week Greece's creditors in banks and hedge funds (not necessarily interested in the same outcome) plus representatives of the "Troika" (EU, IMF and European Central Bank) descend on Athens for an intensive round of negotiations with the Greek government.

Larry Elliott at The Guardian has the best line of the day on the event. "It is international finance's version of Sartre's Huis Clos, a vision of hell where three people who loathe each other are stuck in a room for eternity."