Progress will be slow and there will be periodic setbacks and bouts of heightened anxiety – that is the nature of these things. But equally, we should recognise that things have not been uniformly bad recently. The US economy has not experienced the “double dip” some had feared six months ago, but instead has continued growing.
Reducing the high tax burden on labour, while maintaining the agreed strategy of differentiated growth-friendly fiscal consolidation, is one of the Eurogroup’s current policy priorities. When looking at the structural reform picture, important steps have been taken in several euro area Member States, while in others such measures still need to be legislated and implemented.