Not for the first time during the crisis, the eurozone is looking short of ideas to stimulate growth. Last week, the European Central Bank declined to relax monetary policy, in contrast to the forceful example set by the Bank of Japan. Yet the recovery will not come of its own accord. Without creative thinking, the currency bloc risks drifting into prolonged stagnation.

There is also a growing sense that policy makers are being held hostage by the German elections, scheduled for next September. The optimists are prone to think that a newly minted government in Berlin is bound to show greater flexibility towards its eurozone partners. This almost certaintly underestimates the forces of continuity in German economic policy. Anyway, Europe cannot afford to wait six more months for action.

The recovery, which policy makers were predicting for the second half of this year, now looks fanciful. The latest data on industrial production, which will be out this Friday, are expected to make for yet more gloomy reading. Unemployment in the periphery is soaring. Even the German economy, which some thought would rebound strongly after shrinking late last year, has run out of steam.