In a sense, the EU has returned to the same macroeconomic stability that characterised the 1950s and the 1960s. Inflation in the euro area is well anchored to price stability according to our definition – below, and close to 2% - and price stability has become a common good for all European citizens, not just a subset of them.
The dispersion of inflation rates has also been reduced. In 1992, the difference between the highest and the lowest inflation rate across the euro area countries was around 13.5 percentage points.