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We observe a downward trend of productivity growth – which is considered by some as “secular”, jumping perhaps too hastily to a very long-term conclusion. Furthermore, the ageing of the population means the labour supply is shrinking and potential growth is falling. Thanks to Japan’s G20 Presidency, the challenges posed by demographics are now on the agenda. The ECB’s monetary policy has played an important role in supporting the recovery of the euro area: estimates put the cumulated impact on growth at around 2.5 pp and on inflation at between 1 and 1.5 pp for the period 2014–181. In addition, 11 million jobs have been created since 2013. In September, the ECB introduced a further package of measures. Although it has received less attention, the most innovative part of this package is the strengthening of the state-dependent forward guidance on interest rates. Conditional on inflation developments, this will act as an automatic stabilizer through adjustments in the yield curve and financial conditions. In other words: what does matter is not only the level of our key short term interest rates, which are currently anticipated by markets, reasonably in my view, as close to bottoming out ; it is also and foremost the time horizon of our policy measures Clearly, monetary policy will be all the more effective if it will no longer be the only game in town. You may not realise it, but the euro area has more policy room than others in non-monetary domains, but under-uses it.