12 See the European Commission’s financing programmes for SMEs; and Kremer, M. and Popov, A. (2018),  “Financial development, financial structure and growth: evidence from Europe”, in Financial integration in Europe, ECB. 13 See Hsu, P., Tian, X. and Xu, Y. (2014), “Financial development and innovation: Cross-country evidence”, Journal  of Financial Economics, Vol. 112, No 1, pp.
Looking ahead, lower commodity prices and the prospect of weak demand confirm our assessment of mid-January that inflationary pressures in the euro area are diminishing. Owing mainly to base effects stemming from the past behaviour of energy prices, headline annual inflation rates are projected to decline further in the coming months, possibly reaching very low levels at mid-year.