##ing, broad - based upswing. quarterly gdp growth has been consistently between 0. 3 % and 0. 8 %. employment has grown by more than 4. 5 million people. and this is despite the fact that we have encountered adverse shocks in that period, not least the slowdown in emerging market economies and renewed tensions in the euro area banking sector. so what accounts for this improved resilience of the euro area economy? certainly the recovery cannot be explained by “ endogenous ” or underlying growth forces, which were unusually weak in its early phase. nor can several of the “ exogenous ” factors that have supported previous euro area recoveries provide an answer. first, in the past euro area growth has been closely interdependent with world trade, with external demand playing a central role in supporting the recoveries after the dotcom crash and the lehman bankruptcy. since mid - 2014, however, world trade has weakened considerably and last 1 / 6 bis central bankers'speeches year grew at the slowest pace since the financial crisis. yet the correlation with euro area output has more or less broken down. growth has accelerated even as world trade has fallen back. second, though fiscal policy has stopped being a headwind – as it was during the 2011 – 13 period – it has not been much of a tailwind to the recovery either. with governments still undertaking a necessary process of balance sheet repair, fiscal policy between 2013 and 2015 was basically neutral and provided only a mildly positive contribution to growth last year. this contrasts with both the post - lehman and post - dotcom recoveries where the fiscal stance was more expansionary. 1 third, the contribution of the supply side to the recovery has so far been limited. there have been few structural reforms in the last few years that would justify higher expenditure by firms and households as they revise up their future income. and this is especially true for reforms to product markets and the business environment, which typically have the strongest impact on current spending. so based on simple growth accounting, there are only two “ exogenous ” factors left that can realistically explain the resilience of the recovery : the collapse in oil prices in 2014 – 15 and our monetary policy. and this is also what we find in our internal model - based estimates, which show that growth has been highly reliant on these two forces. all told, we estimate that half of the extra gdp growth achieved during the current recovery has been attributable to

, in the case of germany, you have to look far back in history to find inflation rates close to those we are seeing now. in june, according to the flash estimate and as measured by the harmonised index of consumer prices, we had an inflation rate of 8. 2 %. that is slightly lower than it was in may, which is partly a result of the federal government ’ s relief measures, such as the fuel rebate and the nine - euro ticket. inflation has not been this high for almost 50 years, during the first oil crisis. like at that time, energy prices are currently playing a key role, but so are rising food prices. the triggers for these price rises are thus largely on the supply side. most recently, the russian war against ukraine was the major contributing factor. however, another important aspect was the fact that demand, especially for industrial goods, picked up considerably as the pandemic began to subside around the world. in any case, monetary policy cannot afford to simply “ look through ” price inflation. if it does not act now, there is a risk that the high rates of inflation will become entrenched. this is all the more true given that the price increases are now becoming increasingly widespread. euro area inflation excluding energy and food already came to 3. 8 % in may – up from 1. 0 % a year earlier and 1. 4 % on average between 1999 and 2019. and there are signs that inflation will remain high for the time being and only ease gradually next year : for example, strong price pressure at earlier input stages that diminishes only slowly and is transmitted with a time lag. the eurosystem staff macroeconomic projections from the beginning of june expect euro area consumer price inflation to average 6. 8 % for 2022 and still come to 3. 5 % in 2023. and in 2024, the average inflation rate is projected to still be slightly in excess of our 2 % inflation target. however, forecasts promising that inflation will decline towards 2 % over the medium term should not lull into a false sense of security. after all, past projections underestimated the actual path of inflation on multiple occasions. that is why they had to be revised upwards over and over again. the june projection, too, was already outdated when it was published because the inflation rate in may had been underestimated. it may be the case that our models are not capturing the currently exceptionally strong price dynamics in full