If we take a medium-term view EU and EMU have been able to achieve substantial progress in important fields – progress that may have been considered utopian just 10 years ago. I just want to mention the establishment of the Single Supervisory Mechanism in the context of the European Banking Union and the creation and highly successful work of the European Stability Mechanism.
When we weighed all of the evidence in early March, we concluded that there was, in the near term, room for more monetary stimulus without risking pressures on capacity and inflation. On 6 March, we cut the Bank Rate by another 50 basis points, bringing the total reduction since January to 75 basis points.