Consumer confidence showed an improvement relative to July. The rise observed in the current month may to some extent be due to seasonal variation of the respective index. In any event, the recovery seen since the beginning of the year appears to have taken hold, despite the sharp fluctuations caused by major political and economic shocks (developments in Cyprus, closure of state broadcaster ERT, withdrawal of Democratic Left from the three-party coalition government, etc.). But consumer confidence still remains at extremely low levels and citizens’ expectations for the future continue to be negative.