“Only at the end of this year will the European economy return to 2008 levels, Italy is very far from those levels of 2008 and it will take many years to get back there”. Thus the Governor of the Bank of Italy Ignazio Visco during a speech at the international conference in Villa Mondragone. According to Visco, the problem "is a backwardness, also cultural, in Europe and in Italy perhaps also due to the increase in well-being over the last fifty years". There is stagnation in Europe, “we are at a standstill” adds Visco.
Coming then to the monetary policy of the ECB, with quantitative easing it is not causing "strong risks on financial assets" added Visco. An accommodating monetary policy, continued for a long time, can bring risks but "at this stage there are not yet strong risks on financial assets". Visco recalled that since last summer the ECB's interventions have been aimed at countering deflation because “there is no good deflation; deflation is bad and must be fought”.
