As I said before, the repair of the transmission channel cannot be done by the central bank alone, governments need to do their part. Let me therefore turn to the on-going adjustment in Member States, and the euro area more generally. 2.
The adjustment in the euro area  During the past five years, a number of euro area countries have seen a significant correction of their external and domestic imbalances. In Ireland, Greece and Portugal current account balances improved by more than 7 per cent of GDP between 2008 and 2012.