The case for a further narrowing of euro-zone bond spreads

IT WAS BUSINESSECBECBECBECBEUNGEUEU as usual at the European Central Bank (). At the press conference on July 22nd that followed its regular monetary-policy meeting, Christine Lagarde, the bank’s boss, might have been hoping for a few plaudits. The had recently announced that it was changing to a symmetric inflation target, bringing it into line with practice everywhere else. No such luck. Many of the questions were critical in nature. Why is the not doing more? How split are its members? And so on.As dispiriting as this was for Ms Lagarde, the focus on issues of fine-tuning is rather cheering. Mario Draghi, her predecessor as president, spent a lot of time fighting to keep the euro zone together. These days it looks a lot more solid, a lot more normal. The new inflation target is only one sign of this. Another is that the active use of fiscal policy is no longer anathema. The next-generation fund (), which will disburse €750bn ($880bn) to member states, affords a degree of burden-sharing between countries. And the politics of “Europe” are notably less ugly. Populists in France and Italy no longer talk about leaving the euro or the .