Why interest rates are set to remain low for a long time in the euro zone

Currently, everything points in the direction of a sustained period of low interest rates in the euro zone: The low level of inflation, despite the low unemployment rate, due to the functioning of both the labour market and the goods market; The stability of oil prices at quite a low level; The ECB’s desire to lift inflation and expected inflation, but also to prevent a recession and a debt crisis; The euro zone’s excess savings and the excess demand for risk-free bonds at a time when the public debt is declining, in particular in the core countries; The low level of the term premium due to the low expected variability of short-term interest rates; The decline in the euro zone’s potential growth; The expansionary monetary policy in the United States, especially as the trade war is escalating; The lasting slowdown in Chinese growth and therefore in global trade and industrial growth.