Era of Easy Money for Eurozone Nears Its End

RIGA, Latvia — The European Central Bank is expected on Thursday to take another cautious step toward an era when the eurozone economy will function without life support.

Meeting in Riga, the Latvian capital, the central bank’s Governing Council is scheduled to officially discuss when to end its purchases of government and corporate bonds, a form of money printing known as quantitative easing that helped prevent the eurozone from collapsing under the strain of a debt crisis.

The mere fact that the topic is on the agenda is significant. The shift away from a decade of extraordinarily easy money is delicate — as the Federal Reserve, which raised its benchmark interest rate in the United States by a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday, has learned to its peril.

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