The euro zone is likely to see an extended period of slow economic growth and European Central Bank's policy will have to stay loose for a long time, ECB Vice-President Vitor Constancio said on Friday.
Constancio, in the text of a speech to be given in Singapore, also criticized the European Commission's proposal for shutting down failing banks, saying that the planned authority should be given access to a public credit line.
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"Advanced economies, Europe in particular, face a long period of slow growth that will test the quality of our institutions," Constancio told the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum event, according to the text.
"The euro area is still facing a painful crisis of imbalances, financial fragmentation and low growth."
Constancio said the ECB's step in providing forward guidance about interest rates last week - abandoning its customary insistence that it never precommits on policy - had been successful in stabilizing financial markets after the U.S. Federal Reserve indicated it would slow its asset purchases. He said the ECB would not exit from crisis measures yet.