If the Federal Reserve comes to the conclusion that it can raise interest rates, that means that the US economy is strong. That would be good news for the global economy, and therefore also good news for the euro area. It will be crucial that global financial markets are resilient enough to deal with this change in monetary policy. And, are they resilient enough?
Or should we be worried that the first US interest rate rise since June 2006 will cause chaos in the markets? We have been living with very low interest rates for a very long time. The challenge is to ensure that market participants recognise that the future regime will be more like it normally was in the past – with higher interest rates.