The ECB accuses the politicians of inaction, continues injecting billions to banks

Last Saturday 8 July the Belgian newspaper De Standaard published an interview with Peter Praet, Member of the Executive Board and chief economist of the European Central Bank. Praet said it plainly “We do say that we still need a long period of accommodative policy before we are ready”. What he means by ‘being ready’ […]

Conflicting statistics and bad banks haunt the Eurozone

Last week, Eurostat, the EU statistical service, released its flash estimate of the GDP of the first quarter of 2016, finding it, in both the Eurozone and the EU28, to be 0.5% bigger in comparison to the previous period. In the fourth quarter of 2015, GDP had also grown by 0.3% and 0.4% respectively. Does […]

ECB to play down IMF’s alarms for deflation danger in the EU

It was last Tuesday when Peter Praet, Member of the Executive Board and chief economist of the European Central Bank (ECB), reported to two Belgian newspapers that there is limited risk of price deflation in the euro area. The Economic Sentiment Indicator (ESI) in the euro area and in the EU gained momentum after four […]