Fathom retains a pessimistic view of the euro area’s long-term prospects, unless progress is eventually made towards transforming the currency bloc into a fully-fledged fiscal union. We do, however, see tentative signs of progress in this regard, with President Macron of France proposing a series of reforms to address some of the euro area’s structural flaws. In any case, we acknowledge that the near-term outlook is far brighter with the union’s strong cyclical upswing expected to continue this year. In