Excellent piece as always—concise and clear.

As an economist born and raised in Italy and imbued with the ideal of a united Europe, I believe the odds of the reforms you highlight are exceedingly low for two reasons:

The rise of populist politics makes the consensus required for such reforms politically arduous.

Geopolitics—specifically the realignment of U.S. interests. The trans-Atlantic alliance is moribund in its current form, and once the dust settles the new system of alliances will likely look very different. Such a shift will inevitably strain the monetary union’s structure and, in my view, could lead to fragmentation.