Indeed, the economic recovery in the euro area is gaining further momentum and is broadly based. That is also evidenced by the upward revision of the ECB staff’s growth projection. The projection has also shown, however, that inflationary pressure remains rather subdued. The domestic price pressures identified in the projection are, however, quite consistent with a path towards our definition of price stability.
That fact that it’s taking a little longer to achieve our monetary policy objectives also has to do with enterprises and households in many euro-area countries still being occupied with reducing their high levels of debt in some cases. And a number of crisis-affected countries have succeeded in strengthening their competitiveness and transforming current account deficits into surpluses.