In addition, our inflation rate – at over twice the euro area average – is becoming an ever increasing threat to our competitiveness and, hence, employment situation. I would reiterate, as we have stated for some time now, that this puts the onus back on prudent fiscal policy and appropriate wage and other cost developments to ensure stability.
The same is true for the euro area as a whole, with the added qualification of the importance of the need for structural reform to enhance the productivity of euro area economies. This brings us to the salient question of where growth is going to come from in the euro area.