Part of this debt was to fund investment which, as you know, has been very strong, but a significant part was also for financial activity. There was a general increase in gearing in the corporate sector, as boards worried that they could be seen as having lazy balance sheets, making them takeover targets for private equity.
Apart from its monetary policy implications, the international use of the euro may also provide a yardstick with which to assess the appropriateness and credibility of public policies conducted in the euro area. Of course, the euro can in part rely on the track record of its 11 legacy currencies.