Finance & economics | Breaking the euro area’s doom loop

A safe asset is devised for the euro zone

An ingenious proposal to end banks’ dangerous reliance on domestic sovereign bonds

THESE are bright days in the euro area. Preliminary figures say that the currency zone’s GDP grew by 2.5% last year, the fastest since 2007. But many of the faultlines in the zone’s financial system, as revealed by the financial crisis, remain. A proposal published on January 29th by a group reporting to the European Systemic Risk Board, a prudential supervisor, may mend one of the more troubling flaws.

This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Breaking the doom loop”

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