ECB meetings are non-events these days and will be for the foreseeable future.

Long story short, they’re at neutral, or something very near neutral, inflation in Europe’s more or less on-target and the bloc-wide growth outlook’s as tenuous as it always is, so policy’s on hold until further notice.

“Inflation remains close to the 2% medium-term target and the Governing Council’s assessment of the inflation outlook is broadly unchanged,” the bank said Thursday, holding rates steady. “The economy has continued to grow despite the challenging global environment… [h]owever, the outlook is still uncertain, owing particularly to ongoing global trade disputes and geopolitical tensions.”

The figure above’s just an orientation device: An updated reminder of how the hiking and cutting cycles played out, alongside the inflation trajectory.

If you didn’t know any better, you’d be inclined to suggest Christine Lagarde was masterful in managing price growth back down to target. I’m not suggesting that’s the “wrong” way to tell the story, but… well, suffice to say monetary policy in Europe played a supporting role at best in determining inflation outcomes.

I mention that to set up an equally unexciting and equally brief discussion of preliminary GDP data for Europe released on Thursday. These are the “worst” sorts of macro updates: When I say no one cares, that’s an understatement to the extent it can be. Technically, “no one” is the fewest number of people, but if it were possible for less than no one to care about a given macro release, that’s how many people would care about Eurostat’s flash GDP readout.

Having thoroughly insulted the Europeans (who might very well question my standing to cast aspersions considering the rather “deplorable” state of American democracy) I’ll get to the numbers. The overall expansion in Q3 was 0.2% QoQ and 1.3% YoY. That 0.2% sequential print was actually a beat. Economists expected a second consecutive 0.1% readout.

The figure above gives you some context, in case — you know — someone grabs you by the arm on the street and demands to know how the European economy’s coping with Donald Trump’s tariffs.

The country-by-country breakdown shows Germany’s basically in a recession. Q3’s 0.0% “growth” came on the heels of a 0.2% expansion the prior quarter. So much for the much-ballyhooed revival spearheaded by fiscal expansion and defense spending. “When German Chancellor Friedrich Merz took office in May, he promised that all Germans would feel change and improvement by the summer,” ING remarked. “This morning’s first estimate of German Q3 GDP shows that this promise has not been fulfilled.”

Italy’s likewise stuck in a rut. The bloc’s third-largest economy was stagnant last quarter following a slight contraction in Q2. Spain’s the standout. The Spanish economy posted another brisk expansion, even as economists fret about external demand as export growth sags.

Another bright spot: France, if you can believe it. Growth there was 0.5% QoQ in Q3, better than expected and “against all odds,” as one bank put it.

I suppose that’s encouraging for the US to the extent it means not having a functioning legislature’s no obstacle to decent growth outcomes, even if in the American context, political dysfunction prevents government statisticians from running the numbers.

Were it not for the shutdown in D.C., the BEA would’ve published the first read on Q3 GDP for the US on Thursday. Alas.