2016-08-03bloomberg.com

At the beginning of Draghi's term, the euro was too strong for pretty much everyone, and has typically aligned itself more to the needs of "core" economies, Germany included. That hasn't been helpful.

...

The ECB's more recent policies have weakened the exchange rate more toward what would be appropriate for countries like Italy or Spain. Since the announcement of negative rates in June 2014, the euro slid by almost 20 percent against the dollar. While that's still too strong for Greece, it's closer to the average.

The average spread between countries' optimal rate and the actual euro level has fallen from $0.25 at the beginning of 2011 to $0.14 at the end of 2015.

Given the structure of the euro, though, there may be only so much that the current set of policies can do. According to Talavera's Oxford Economics study, the ECB's monetary policy has always been plagued by a paradox: while it has has been "generally right for the common currency area as a whole, it has proven to be wrong for most of its individual members most of the time."



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