It is the most important step to be taken in European integration since the inception of the euro, perhaps more important than the single currency itself. It will have far-reaching consequences for national economic models and national legislation. So there is room for optimism if we succeed in taking that quantum leap forward. Isn’t that overly optimistic?
Table 2 - The Portuguese economy in 1995-2018: Some key figures  Sources: Banco de Portugal, National Statistics Institute, Eurostat (1) Non-financial private sector (2) In the first column, average corresponds to the period 1999-2007 (3) Nominal. In the last column average corresponds to 2015-2016 due to data unavailability for 2017-2018 (4) 1999=100  5.