A wave of Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As) started towards the end of the 1990s and is still continuing, and which was also aided by the privatization process.
But the answer to that is: let’s get the European economy to invest more, because without more investment those savings have nowhere to go. The key to more investment is really good policies across the European Union: pro-innovation, pro-enterprise, pro-education. The key to a high return on investment is much more about those policies. It’s a mistake to exaggerate the role of the ECB.