FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The euro zone economy will need a long time to recover from its pandemic-induced crisis and a string of solid data in recent days is not necessarily a good guide to recovery, European Central Bank chief economist Philip Lane said on Wednesday.
Opening the economy will yield substantial improvement in near-term growth indicators but since the contraction was also exceptionally large, activity will remain far below the pre-crisis level for an extended period and the scale of the initial rebound may not be a good guide, Lane said in a speech.
“The outcome of negotiations about the EU recovery fund will be an important factor in determining the future path for the euro area economy,” Lane added.
(Reporting by Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Catherine Evans)
