In most countries, including Italy, this convergence has meant significantly reduced financing costs, thereby providing an environment favourable to growth and employment. Thanks to the stability oriented macroeconomic policy framework, focusing on price stability and on sound fiscal policies, - that is the two missing elements of the Latin Monetary Union - risk premia have declined and inflation expectations have stabilized at low levels.
Today, the euro area economy benefits from benchmark long-term market interest rates below 4%, a level which most issuers have never seen in the last fifty years.