Euro Area: Macroeconomic Policies Under Constraints

One almost no longer speaks about them. Neither in international forums, where sound economic policies essentially mean structural reforms, enhanced competition, trade integration and financial supervision; nor in the public debate, except to assign them objectives which are mainly out of their scope. Still, monetary and fiscal policies represent important levies of action. Between the ECB’s price stability objective and the Stability and Growth Pact, do counter-cyclical policies have a role to play in the euro area?