And back to matters Greek. The country’s deputy premier Evangelos Venizelos is holding talks in Berlin with the German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble at the start of a two-day visit to the country. Helena Smith reports from Athens:

In what is being described as a well-timed visit aimed at apprising senior German officials about the situation on the ground in Greece – and even more importantly in its parliament - Venizelos kicked off his tour meeting the man who matters most.

The Greek leader who is also foreign minister, has begun talks with Schauble, regarded by policy gurus in Athens as Germany’s decision maker by excellence. “He is the one with the clout, the one who has the last say in financial affairs. He is more important than [German chancellor Angela] Merkel,” said one insider. “We see this meeting as being crucial to German understanding of the situation in Greece and after the [announcement of the] presidential elections even more important than before.”

Venizelos is expected to explain the make-up of the 300-seat House and the likelihood of the government winning its high stakes gamble to get a new president elected by the parliament. “Germany’s stance, officially, is ‘we don’t care what government is in power in Athens’ but in reality it knows that if the [presidential] vote fails, elections are held, and Syriza does come to power, things will likely be very difficult … not just in Greece but in the eurozone and right now Germany is much more concerned about Italy and France than Greece. It wants the situation in Greece to be resolved.”

The meeting comes amid much ado in Athens over the lack of surprise that foreign lenders have shown over the presidential election – the acceleration of which sent shock waves through Greece. Both Schauble, and the EU economic affairs commissioner Pierre Moscovici, have appeared unfazed about the decision to bring the vote forward with Moscovici saying openly that he had been informed of the move beforehand.

Meanwhile the European Commission, in an unusual move, backed Greek prime minister Antonis Samaras’ choice for president in next week’s vote, former EU environment commissioner Stavros Dimas.

And on that note, it’s time to close up for the evening. Thanks for all your comments, and we’ll be back tomorrow.

Another negative for the oil price from the latest US stocks report:

Some early snaps from a speech by European Central Bank executive board member Benoit Coeure - rumoured to be one of those at odds with president Mario Draghi over policy - courtesy of Reuters:

• 10-Dec-2014 14:19 - ECB’S COEURE SAYS ECB HAS TO SHOW IN A CONVINCING WAY THAT WE CAN BRING INFLATION BACK TOWARDS 2 PCT
• 10-Dec-2014 14:20 - ECB’S COEURE SAYS EURO ZONE FISCAL STANCE IS NOW BROADLY NEUTRAL AND APPROPRIATE

Back to Greece briefly, and it does appear that the Athens government has climbed down over jailed hunger striker Nicos Romanos (see earlier post).

The president of Athens’ Gennimatas hospital has declared that Romanos will end his hunger strike, hours after intensifying it, in an attempt to gain access to university.

Helena Smith reports that the Athens government tried to diffuse the situation with legislation allowing prisoners to attend university if they are tagged:

Supporters outside the hospital are shouting “We are with you in whatever choice you make.”; commentators saying that this is first time that government has been forced to stand down on an issue since the Greek crisis began, Helena adds.

It means politicians and Greeks alike can focus on next week’s presidential elections...

The FCA isn’t planning to offer compensation to anyone who lost out in the zombie fund probe debacle:

Shares in the industry tumbled at the start of trading, on the morning that the Telegraph splashed that “Savers locked into ‘rip-off’ pensions and investments may be free to exit”, adding:

The review, to begin this summer, will include pensions, endowments, investment bonds and life insurance sold by doorstep salesmen who were often spurred on by large commissions.

It took the FCA until after 2pm to issue a statement clarifying the scope of the review into the life insurance business.

The FCA’s chief executive, Martin Wheatley, has just been given a vote of confidence...

Those last tweets refer to Clive Adamson, the FCA’s director of supervision, and Zitah McMillan, who ran its PR operations. It emerged on Monday that both are leaving the regulator.

More news from the FCA briefing over its botched investigation into the life insurance industry:

The FCA’s chairman, John Griffith-Jones, has admitted that the “Zombie” probe debacle has hurt its image:

Update: Word from Athens that MPs may have voted to allow hunger-striking prison Nikos Romanos to attend university (see previous post)

As if the Greek government did not have enough on its hands, news has come in that the jailed hunger-striking anarchist, Nikos Romanos, is now refusing to take liquids amid warnings from doctors that his condition has deteriorated dramatically.

Helena Smith reports from Athens:

I have just spoken to Romanos’ father who confirmed that his 21-year-old son, who have been on hunger strike since November 10, stopped taking liquids this morning.

“He began refusing liquids a few hours ago,” said Giorgos Romanos adding that until now he had accepted sugared tea, his only nourishment for the past four plus weeks.

“His condition is very bad and very, very dangerous. None of this would have happened if the government had met his request for educational leave.”

The Greek parliament is currently debating whether to allow Romanos, who is currently serving a 16-year prison sentence for participating in an armed robbery of a bank, to attend university with an electronic tag. “He has accepted to wear the monitoring device,” his father, a dentist, told me. “I very much hope the problem will be solved by the parliament today.”

With tensions becoming ever more explosive, parties across the entire political spectrum have waded in, saying the time has come to bend the law by giving Romanos the furlough. “He doesn’t want to escape, he wants to study,” his lawyer, Frangiscos Ragoussis told reporters.

But the ruling centre right New Democracy party along with the neo fascist group, Golden Dawn, are digging in their heels. The Justice Minister Charalambos Athanasiou has repeatedly said that the letter of the law should be followed - although many believe that with the country now at the eye of an international storm and sparking market bedlam following the government’s decision to bring presidential elections forward, he may relent.

Should Romanos die, Greece’s ever-active anarchist and anti-establishment bloc, already baying for a fight over austerity, have pledged that the riots of 2008 (sparked by the police shooting of 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos who died in the arms of his best friend Romanos) will “look like a kindergarden affair.”

On Saturday, as the country marked the sixth anniversary of the fatal shooting, riots erupted nationwide. As solidarity rallies were stepped up today nationwide, doctors warned that they did not think Romanos could “hang on for long.”

“I will try to persuade him to stop if things get much worse,” said his father. “I hope he will listen, but as you can see he is very stubborn and he sees this as an ethical stance, a moral battle that he won’t surrender easily.”

The political instability in Greece must be a nasty shock to the fund managers who took part in its debt auction earlier this year.

Greece made a ‘triumphant’ return to the bond markets in April, raising €3bn in new five-year bonds, at an average yield of 4.95%.

It received €20bn of bids, from investors desperate to buy a bond with a decent rate of return.

The bond has subsequently fallen in value, pushing up its yield to around 8.6%.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that bond-holders won’t receive their regular interest payments, and then regain their capital in 2019. But it suggests it wasn’t the best trade of the year, as some other fund managers warned...

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Robin Bew tweets:

The cost of insuring Greek debt against default has spiked today.

Data from Markit shows that a Greek credit default swap has jumped by almost 100 basis points, to 918bp.

That means it would cost €918,000 per year to insure €10bn of five-year Greek bonds.

Britain’s trade deficit has fallen to a seven-month low, thanks to lower oil imports.

The ONS reports that the gap between what the UK imported and exported fell to £2.0bn in October 2014, down from £2.8bn September 2014. The country ran a £9.6bn goods deficit, versus a £7.6bn surplus on services.

Rob Wood of Berenberg bank reckons the falling oil price should help trim the trade gap in the next few months:

North Sea oil platforms came back on-line [in October], cutting the UK’s need to import energy, while lower oil prices might also have helped. There will be more to come on that score. The UK is a net oil importer, so weaker prices for the black gold should improve the UK’s trade balance.

The “dreadful” deficit in goods trade is nothing to crow about, Wood added.

The selloff in Greek bonds is accelerating, driving its short-term borrowing costs over 9%:

Some background to the current crisis:

The Greek president is elected by the country’s MPs, and a three-fifths majority is required.

Greece’s coalition government only holds a narrow majority in the 300-seat parliament, and needs to persuade more than 20 opposition MPs to back its candidate, Stavros Dimas at this month’s snap elections.

Analysts at Nomura predict that Dimas will be rejected (the final ballot is 29 December), triggering a general election.

The oil price is down again this morning, with Brent crude dropping by 1.4% to $65.90 per barrel.

David Papier, market analyst at ETX Capital, blames “global growth concerns and political uncertainty in Greece”.

Over in the UK parliament, the Treasury committee is about to quiz the head of the Office for Budget Responsibility.

Expect lots of questions about chancellor George Osborne’s plan to eliminate the deficit in the next parliament, and slash public spending, as a percentage of GDP, to its lowest since the 1930s.

My colleague Andrew Sparrow is live-blogging it all here:

MPs question OBR’s Robert Chote about autumn statement: Politics Live blog

In the UK, one of the hawkish members of the Bank of England has declared that interest rates may need to rise soon.

Ian McCafferty, who has voted for rate rises in recent meetings, argues that wage growth has - finally! - reached a turning point, which could require higher borrowing costs.

“Overall, I think that the risks around our central estimate of slack in the November Inflation Report are probably skewed to the downside, and that in practise there may not be that much spare capacity left in the labour market.”

But with inflation at 1.3%, and heading lower, most city economists don’t expect rates to rise until well into 2015, or even longer.

European stock markets have risen in early trading, clawing back some of yesterday’s losses.

The French CAC is up 0.85%, the German DAX is up 1%,and the FTSE 100 has gained 0.5%.

This blogpost by Channel 4’s Paul Mason explains why the Greek crisis has leapt up the agenda:

The Greek endgame begins

In it, he explains how the left-wing Syriza party will push for new debt write-offs if it wins power, and why that is alarming investors in eurozone bonds:

One investment briefing I’ve seen says there is a chance Angela Merkel will agree to a comprehensive Greek bailout, signalling the first steps to a fiscal union.

But the danger is that in Spain, where Syriza’s ally Podemos also tops the polls, momentum builds there for a general write off of peripheral European debt. Given that even the Financial Times thinks this is the best way out for Europe we might then be at a tipping point.

There’s a lot of ifs in this scenario: the presidential election has to fail, Syriza has to win, its leader Alexis Tsipras has to stick to his hard line. But none of it is impossible – which is why the Greek stock market fell 9 per cent on Monday night’s news.

Get the popcorn in, everyone. Greece’s deputy prime minister, Evangelos Venizelos, is due to meet with German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble later today:

Ian Williams, analyst at Peel Hunt, sums up the City’s concerns about Greece:

‘Grexit’ had fallen off the list of things that European investors are worried about but it returned with a vengeance yesterday; the prospect of a presidential vote in Greece next week, followed by a general election which (based on current poll ratings) could see the Syriza party in government saw investors take fright.

Such an administration would be highly unlikely to follow the fiscal constraints imposed by the IMF/EU bailout plan, and much more likely to prioritise how to exit the bailout.

The Greek drama also makes the front page of the Financial Times today, who report:

Greece’s political woes re-erupted as a threat to global financial stability yesterday, triggering the biggest drop on the Athens stock exchange since the 1980s and sending reverberations through world markets.

Yesterday the Athens stock market suffered its biggest one-day fall in over 20 years; Syriza politicians apparently reckon its a conspiracy to hit their support: