Yet over these two years, our economy has continued to expand at a reasonable pace, with growth over 2015 having been a bit stronger than was earlier expected and not too different from the long-term average.
The uncertainties are greater for the Eurosystem than for other central banks, given the additional uncertainties associated with EMU. The transition to monetary union has changed the behaviour of economic agents, partly because the differences in interest rates that used to exist between the countries of the euro area have almost disappeared.