‘Europe stops; Draghi’s push’

European Central Bank president Mario Draghi announced that “projections for real GDP growth have been revised substantially downwards” for the coming years during a 4 December press conference. The GDP of the eurozone “is expected to grow by 0.8 per cent in 2014 (from 0.9 per cent three months ago), by 1 per cent in 2015 (from 1.6 per cent) and by 1.5 per cent in 2016 (from 1.9 per cent)”, reports Corriere della Sera.
“This is not the only bad news”, adds the Milan daily: “Draghi has once again cut the eurozone’s inflation forecast” over “fears of the deflation precipice coming closer – a risk the ECB would like to avoid.”
For the Corriere, the announcement marks —

the end of an era, that of the ECB president’s verbal guarantees regarding the eurozone. In the past two years, Mario Draghi’s ECB has built some trust in the single currency and, in the same time, bought some time for the eurozone’s politicians to implement the promised reforms and for banks to adapt their internal processes under Frankfurt’s supervision. […] Words are not sufficient any more, now that the figures show how anemic the eurozone really is.