Across the euro area economies the degree of policy looseness is the greatest it has been since our series began in 1999, potentially explaining why the common currency area has been enjoying such a strong cyclical upturn recently. However, the ECB has announced that, from September of this year, monthly asset purchases will be halved to €15bn a month and phased out altogether by the end of 2018. We also expect that the composition of the ECB’s Governing Council will become more hawkish over the coming year. We believe that GDP growth across the currency bloc peaked in 2017, with a slew of weaker-than-expected survey and other soft data released in the first half of this year suggesting a slowdown in 2018.
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