The European Central Bank is in a policy no man’s land, bombarded by news of a stagnating eurozone economy but hesitant to move forward with new stimulus until measures it loaded in June have ignited.
After the ECB cut interest rates in June and promised banks cheap long-term loans starting in September, about all that is left is printing money to buy bonds — so-called quantitative easing (QE).
But there are tricky practical and political barriers in the ECB’s way: it is boxed in by its own plans, and still faces strong opposition from economic power Germany to any such monetary leniency.
