ECB: Panetta, we need more ambition, evaluate increased stimuli

The euro area needs to respond with "greater ambition" to the damage to the economic fabric inflicted by the pandemic which "is greater than what we see now".

To say it is Fabio Panetta, member of the Executive Committee of the ECB, in an interview with El Pais.

The answer must first of all be the use of the instruments that the Union has equipped itself against the pandemic shock, but more could be needed.

"We need to make the € 750 billion EU Recovery Tool operational" and "we should consider providing more fiscal support to bring demand back to its potential faster," says Panetta.

    Furthermore, for the ECB, faced with inflation still far from the 2% target, waiting risks being "even more expensive". "We have - explains the former director general of the Bank of Italy - room for maneuver because we have used only a part of the 1.85 billion" of Pepp. "But if we spend this money and we are still below target, then we will have to do more."