Therefore, the stagnation in the European economy has been protracted, and that has recently been spread to core countries, including Germany, mainly in terms of business sentiment. The growth rate of the euro area economy has been negative for three consecutive quarters. In the meantime, the European authorities have been taking various policy measures.
In July, a financial support measure to inject public funds into Spanish financial institutions was compiled, and in the beginning of September, the European Central Bank (ECB) introduced a new program to purchase government bonds with a maturity of between one and three years, with no ex ante quantitative limits on the size of purchases.