All these elements adopted in the third phase are still in place. Moreover, the ECB has adopted an integrated system of forward guidance that governs the future path of asset purchases and short-term interest rates, as well as the sequencing of these different policy tools.
Given their novelty, scope, and potential interaction with other public policies, communicating the merits of these measures proved to be much more difficult than before the crisis. A debate evolved around the premise that central bank purchases of sovereign bonds ventured into the realm of fiscal policy. After all, in the few preceding years of the crisis public debt had surged to high levels.