Against this background, we expect the economic recovery in the euro area to continue and to become more broadly based over the coming quarters, leading to a somewhat stronger upswing in the course of 2005. This is also reflected in the ECB staff projections, which will be published today.
They envisage euro area real GDP growth of between 1.6% and 2.2% on average in 2004, rising to between 1.8% and 2.8% in 2005. These growth rates are close to estimates for long-run potential growth and, for both years, they are slightly higher than was expected in the June Eurosystem staff projections.