Equally important, practically all countries are now taking part in the recovery and more people in the euro area are employed today than before the crisis. These developments would not have materialised without the ECB’s expansionary monetary policy after the second recession in 2012–2013.
While we can be increasingly confident about the sustainability of the recovery, we have to recognise that it has taken much longer for the euro area than for other advanced economies, to emerge from the financial crisis which started in 2008. The depth and length of the euro area crisis unveiled inter alia the incompleteness of the euro area’s institutional design.