Negotiations between Greece and its creditors have put finance ministers and policy makers at a loss for words, but they’ve found a go-to crutch to fill the awkward silences — “taking stock,” a rhetorical place-holder that takes up air time but doesn’t mean much. Sort of like the actual progress in the negotiations thus far.

A few days ago, Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem made his way to the podium in European Council’s Justus Lipsius building to a closed-door meeting of eurozone finance ministers for waiting reporters: “After our stock taking on Greece, we had a broad discussion on euroarea economic issues,” he said.

The same words came again a few minutes later.  “We really need to have an agreement on what has to be done to complete this program,” Dijsselbloem said, “Then we can take stock on what the fiscal indicators, macroeconomic indicators, what will they do.” He was talking about whether or not Greece would have a third rescue program beyond its first and second bailouts worth a combined !245 billion, the last !7.2 billion of which has been under negotiation for months.

How many times can stock be taken without anyone being able to explain precisely the inventory of the talks? In Brussels, there’s no limit and seemingly no one who is prepared to take stock of how much longer to keep taking stock.

In late April, before an informal gathering of finance ministers in Latvia, European Commission chief spokesman Margaritis Schinas, a Greek himself, said, “This meeting in Riga will be the next opportunity for minsters to take stock.” When European Commissioner    described the subsequent    session in which Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis was berated for his country’s lack of progress, he said simply, “We took stock of the situation.”

Just last week at the European Business summit, Moscovici was on a panel with Varoufakis. When it was his turn to speak, Moscovici said, “Yanis is brilliant in the European language. Of course we are closer. We learn to talk. I think we have a common language.” Then the former French finance minister couldn’t help himself: “I really hope there will be progress on which we can take stock.”