On 31 March, we announced that, in the future, we will take ABCP securities that meet certain criteria – including transparency criteria – as collateral under our SLF. We had two broad policy objectives in making this announcement: first, that the eligibility criteria should mitigate any risks to the Bank that might be associated with accepting ABCP securities as collateral for the SLF.
Isn’t it the right time to exit from the policy of extremely cheap money? As a central bank, we conduct monetary policy for the whole of the euro area – and this policy has been working. There is a broad-based recovery happening and it will probably continue. Germany has made a bit more progress than others in that respect.