This is Paul Adamson and I'm in conversation with Marcus Beir.

Marcus Beira is the Director General of Business Europe, the leading European Business Association.

Marcus, there's lots we can talk about in the time we have available to us.

But I want to first start off with some kind of assessment, your assessment, of the European economy, in particular

the Eurozone economy. We've been talking for a long time now since the financial crisis

first hit almost 10 years ago now about how badly the European economy is doing. But almost

10 years on, are there any signs of clear signs of improvement

in the European economy, and in particular the Eurozone economy?

Well, Paul, I mean, actually, of course, we would have liked the European economy to grow faster

and to bounce back more rapidly. At the same time, now we see quite a number of positive signs.

We see growth in all European member states for the whole protection period, and we also

see inflation in all European member states. So the situation has significantly improved,

and also as far as the growth rates are concerned, close to 2% for the whole protection period, I mean,

it's not that bad compared to the potential growth rate. So overall, our assessment is a rather

positive one. Of course, and this needs not to be forgotten. I mean, this is still partly driven

by a number of temporary factors. I mean, this is still partly driven by a number of temporary factors.

I mean, we still have a relatively favorable exchange rate scenario between the euro and the

US dollar.

We still have an expansionary policy of the European Central Bank.

And the oil price, even so is not that the lows we have seen it is still

reasonably moderate. So all these factors of course are not granted to be there forever. So this means of course more needs to be done to use this phase now to translate it into an even stronger economic situation in Europe.

And therefore, there's a lot of European Union we'll have to do.

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