In Germany, for example, GDP did very well throughout the crisis, but domestic demand was relatively weak. At the end of the day, the current account surplus that we will have in EMU is 4% of GDP, which is huge, with Germany having almost 9%. There’s an excess of savings.
Before the crisis we had a current account range of -1% to 1% of GDP. It’s an imbalance that is difficult to resolve. The surplus countries are complaining that they are the ones that will be hit by negative rates. Does this affect the ECB’s decisions? I don’t think the Governing Council changes in any way its capacity to decide because of political debates.