It's a big disappointment. It shows all the talk about the government's tax plans had a much bigger impact on private consumption than we had thought.

Don't expect a new government to arrive and somebody to flip a switch to make everything look just fine again. We're at a painful threshold that we need to cross in order to see an improvement later. In the short run, the measures will burden private households.

Energy prices are still pushing inflation and otherwise price pressures are relatively weak.

Given today's jump in sentiment numbers, hard economic data for January should follow suit.

This is really a very positive surprise but unfortunately it has nothing to do with the economy. It's only a statistical effect because many people who used to be registered as unemployed are no longer included in the numbers.

I don't think that this in any way changes the overall picture for the ECB.

The ECB believes there is a sustainable recovery in the euro zone, but that's not the case in Germany. We think euro zone growth will be weaker than the ECB thinks, so the bank won't be able to raise rates very much.

It's a tough decision with a slowdown in growth and increase in inflation rates, ... The ECB is expected to cut rates by 0.25 percentage point by the end of June.