Reuters Breakingviews delivers agenda-setting financial insight. Its global correspondents react to stories as they develop, delivering sharp and provocative commentary on big financial news as it breaks.

The fourth quarter of 2012 was not good for the euro zone economy. GDP declined by 0.6 per cent. And there has been more bad news since then. January car sales fell to a 20-year low and the French government announced it will miss its already meagre 0.8-per-cent GDP growth forecast in 2013. It’s easy to fall prey to despair. That would be a mistake.