The amount of assets held by the European Central Bank (ECB) last week reached the symbolic threshold of 1,000 billion after 18 months of sovereign debt buybacks in the euro area. The ECB has bought for 11.14 billion euros of government bonds in the week to September 2, a total of 13.75 billion euros of securities purchased.
A year and a half after the launch of the program of quantitative easing (QE), intended to stimulate activity and to recover inflation in the euro area, the results are mixed at best. Bank credit is certainly go again but it remains sluggish and inflation remains far from the goal of the ECB to higher prices slightly lower than 2%.
Take stock, however, is risky because it is impossible to know what would be the economic state of the euro area without the initiative of the ECB. This program, which is to buy 80 billion euros of assets each month, is due to expire in March. The ECB President, Mario Draghi, should announce anything spectacular at the end of the meeting of the Governing Council to be held on Thursday but he could evoke an extension or modification of this QE.
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