Matteo Salvini said recently that the euro was “absolutely irreversible”. The leader of Italy’s League party is not the only populist in Europe to have shifted tactics on the euro. Marine Le Pen, the French leader of the far-right National Rally, is no longer pushing for an exit from the single currency either.

Should we be relaxed? For as long as the European Central Bank provides unlimited support to the euro, the only conceivable threat to the cohesion of the eurozone can be political. If the leaders of the most Eurosceptic parties in the eurozone have given up the fight against the euro, then you would assume that this must be a cause for relief. But perhaps that assessment is still a little too complacent.

Feeling such relief would depend critically on how you define the threat to the eurozone and whether you take Mr Salvini at his word. We do not know what he may be thinking. Nor what he will be thinking when he finally achieves power. For all we know, he might by lying. What we do know is this: no politician ever succeeded by threatening to abolish the currency in which their voters receive their income and hold their savings. And here is the flipside: I am also sceptical about opinion polls that reflect a Panglossian view of attitudes to the single currency. The situation could change quickly in a financial crisis.