Until very recently, it would have been seen as a smug if not rather overconfident prediction. Standing in the epicentre of Europe’s four-year-old economic crisis, José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, declared yesterday that 2014 would be the year the eurozone finally put the worst behind it.

“Programmes work,” he said in Athens, referring to the austerity-laden eurozone bailout programmes imposed on five of the single currency’s members. If the past 48 hours are any indication, he might just be right.

On Tuesday, Ireland held its first bond auction since exiting its bailout programme in December and raised €3.75bn at its lowest borrowing costs in nearly a decade. Yesterday markets continued to rally after Portugal said it would issue additional 5-year debt as soon as tomorrow and Greece’s finance minister suggested that even Athens could test the bond market waters in the second half the year.