Zum Abschluss möchte ich die Bedeutung von Preisstabilität aus sozialpolitischer Perspektive erläutern. Economic and monetary issues Since my previous appearance before the European Parliament in December last year, newly available information has served to confirm our assessment that economic growth in the euro area continues to expand robustly.
In addition, the cross-checking of our economic and monetary analyses have underlined the existence of upside risks to price stability over the medium to longer term. Accordingly, on 8 March the Governing Council of the ECB decided to increase key ECB interest rates by 25 basis points.