We must stick to the reforms that work, in particular the tax credit for competitiveness and investment (CICE) and the Responsibility and Solidarity Pact (RSP), and we need to go further still. The unemployed and youth cannot afford to wait. There are at least four reforms that are a priority, because our neighbours successfully implemented them and they are fully compatible with the European social model that we share: the large-scale development of apprenticeships; simplifications, starting with labour law; the decentralisation of social dialogue to the company level, i.e. as close as possible to the economic and human reality; and lastly, the development of entrepreneurship. Second, we need to mobilise both public and private investment in order to take advantage of the exceptional financing conditions created by our monetary policy. To do so, we need to put the Juncker Plan back on the table. The Juncker Plan has yielded results, but they are insufficient. To support the revival of this Plan, I have proposed the creation of a true European “Financing and Investment Union”. To achieve this, we must combine the Juncker Plan, the European Commission’s plan for a Capital Markets Union, and the Banking Union. The aim is to create synergies in order to achieve three ambitious goals: better channel euro area household savings to productive investment and equity; better pool risks across countries; and thus better finance innovation and the networks our economy needs. This is the direction we should take now.
The new comprehensive package of measures that we adopted on 10 March 2016 reflects two main objectives: first, to return to inflation rates below, but close to, 2% over the medium term. This is not the case at present since inflation stood at –0.2% in the euro area in February, taking account of the sharp decline in oil prices, but it should return to positive territory in the second half of 2016. The other objective is to bolster the financing of the real economy and to protect it from the pressures related to market volatility. The new series of targeted refinancing operations extension of the asset purchase programme, for its part, will be of particular benefit to large French corporations. We are convinced that these additional measures will deliver concrete results, as did the successive measures we have implemented since June 2014. The latter have indeed boosted lending to businesses, while lowering the cost of credit, and made a 0.3% contribution to French growth in 2015, or even 0.4% according to INSEE. This represents about 80,000 additional jobs for the economy. We are therefore consistent in our objective, and ready to act using the right instruments. But we also remain vigilant as to the possible risks that our monetary policy could generate.