Klaas Knot: Tilting the policy mix in the euro area

Keynote speech by Mr Klaas Knot, President of the Netherlands Bank, at the Finanzmarktklausur Wirtschaftsrat, Berlin, 26 January 2017.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

Central bank speech  | 
20 February 2017

Ladies and Gentlemen,  
Thank you for inviting me to speak at this event of your Wirtschaftsrat.  
I would like to give you a central banker's perspective on the appropriate policy mix in the euro area.
I'm referring to the range of measures that policymakers take to influence economic growth.  
And as you no doubt will know, we central bankers have played a large role in helping the economy stabilize and recover from the crisis. 

Introduction - Tilting the policy mix

Since the onset of the financial crisis in 2008, the euro area economy has had to cope with a series of negative shocks. 
The private sector has been in a deleveraging mode for nearly a decade.  
And also many governments had to make large fiscal adjustments to ensure their debts remained sustainable.
These deleveraging efforts have been holding back growth, making this recovery one of the slowest in recent history.