Euro zone energy support rising but less targeted, Lagarde tells lawmakers
ECB President Christine Lagarde says euro zone governments are spending more on energy cost relief, but the measures are neither temporary nor well targeted.
Fiscal support from euro zone governments to cushion the impact of high energy costs is growing, and the measures are not as temporary or as targeted as policymakers had hoped, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde told lawmakers in Brussels on Monday.
Speaking to legislators, Lagarde said support across the euro area now stands at roughly 0.1 percentage points of GDP. That marks an increase from the level recorded three months earlier, which she said was measured at 0.03.
"What we can see on a euro area-wide basis is support that is in the range of 0.1 percentage points of GDP for the euro area," Lagarde said. "It is an increase relative to what we had seen three months ago, which we measured at 0.03 ... and it is not necessarily temporary, not necessarily targeted."
Her remarks point to a widening gap between the design intentions of national support schemes and how they are actually operating, with energy relief measures becoming broader and more persistent than initially envisaged.