For those who believe the European economy is doomed without the holy grail of "structural reform", it has been an ominous March.
German and French electorates have delivered severe warnings to their respective governments about their appetite for further welfare, pension and labour market changes.
And the European Union's specially-designed economic reform summit failed to provide fresh impetus to its flagging 10-year plan. But economists warn against an apocalyptic view that equates Europe's cyclical growth underperformance with the obvious need to reboot benefit systems and labour markets as a solution to long-term unemployment levels and ageing workforces.
And establishing or dismissing a cause-and-effect between the two may be crucial for the willingness to change further.
If the limited economic reforms that have already been pushed through have indeed forced eurozone consumers to pull in their horns, then there is a risk of a vicious circle developing that could kill off the political will behind reforms for years.
If not, politicians need to grin and bear the electoral flak for now and seek an urgent explanation for the consumer's reluctance to spend - something every expert from the European Central Bank downwards is currently trying to figure out.
"The arguments are simply not convincing to me that the reform process, or lack of it, is a key driver behind European economic performance at present," said David Mackie, European economist at J.P. Morgan Chase.
"For all the obvious need for reform, stagnation during the last three years, after three pretty robust years of growth and job creation, is not adequately explained by reforms or the absence of them."
That stagnation and current underwhelming recovery coincided with Germany, and to a lesser degree France, stepping up reforms and provided neither sufficient job creation nor wage growth to trade off with the public for the politically painful cuts.
A rout of French governing conservatives in Sunday's regional elections may even cost Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin his job in a cabinet reshuffle.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder stepped down as leader of his Social Democrats earlier this month as economic reforms split the party after a series of electoral batterings.
With this sort of political fallout, experts also fear for the will of governments who have yet to take on changes. In that light, it was not surprising Friday's fourth review of the EU's flagship economic reform plan provided little new - despite acknowledgements key targets had not been met and a headline 2010 goal to be the most dymamic economy in the world would be unattainable.
With the current EU Commission stepping down in October, hopes that a Brussels led rally on reform would materialise were always tenuous. Plans for a dedicated commissioner for the process will probably be left to the new Commission President.
But a temporary hiatus in the push for deeper change by Brussels, Paris and Berlin should not necessarily affect the short-term economic horizon, economists argue.
Many argue reform is hard to measure anyway and the public is quite possibly confused by aims of the EU's so-called Lisbon Agenda. There was even talk of changing the name last week.
It has also been easy in a period of substandard economic growth for interest groups to blame the reforms for a lack of jobs and overall economic insecurity.
Yet, the evidence of connection is elusive. Eric Chaney, European economist at Morgan Stanley, said he saw no clear evidence of cause and effect and argued that reforms that have already hit consumer pockets were not sufficient to explain the drop in consumer spending.
Chaney said the conundrum over the European consumer is better explained by perceptions about eurozone prices than any view of the political process and the introduction of euro notes and coins in 2002 had a profound impact on this. How this effect plays out is key to future spending relative to income, he said.
"There is a major misunderstanding about the reason behind the weakness of consumer confidence in the eurozone," said Chaney, adding that consumer confidence per se is less than ever a reliable indicator of consumer spending.
Mackie at J.P. Morgan said he agrees that inflation perceptions appear to be a better indicator of spending plans and may explain a lot more than changes to confidence levels suggest.
Both economists said that, if true, this not only weakens any short-term link with the reform process but also raises serious questions about the effectiveness of further ECB interest rate cuts.
Mackie added that he thinks much of the difference in the performance of the European and US economies over the past year also has to be seen in the light of different monetary and fiscal stimuli after the dot.com bubble burst of 2000.
"Lisbon and its related reforms are important in trying to raise the medium term growth potential in Europe, but it doesn't provide a very good view of what's happening on the ground now".
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