Europe is on the move. After years rusting in the sidings, the Franco-German locomotive has chugged back into view. Angela Merkel is at the controls. Nicolas Sarkozy can be seen beside her in the cab. These two leaders will never be soulmates, but they seem to have agreed on a destination. It’s called European economic government.

There is a snag – there always is when it comes to the European Union. The German chancellor and French president want to couple only 17 of the Union’s 27 carriages to their refurbished train. David Cameron’s British government is perfectly content to wave goodbye from the platform. Poland, Sweden and others outside the single currency are deeply unhappy about the prospect of a two-speed Europe.

The eurozone crisis is far from over. The markets have been relatively calm of late, but politicians would be foolish to mistake respite for resolution. Spreads in the bond markets are a reminder that the debt problems behind last year’s collapse of confidence in the single currency have not gone away. Europe’s banks are in anything but good shape.