The ECB’s recently published “Survey on the access to finance of SMEs in the euro area”1 provides a clear picture of the difficulties this sector, so crucial for the euro area economy, finds itself in. Among the principal causes for concern cited by the SMEs interviewed, access to credit was second only to the difficulties encountered in finding customers for their products.
The obstacles to obtaining credit (linked to the refusal to grant credit) persist, and represent one of the main factors of heterogeneity between countries in the euro area, though they are not confined to those countries under stress.