The former Chairman of the Fed, Paul Volcker, recently cautioned that “financiers are slipping back into bad habits, chasing chicanery and lobbying to loosen regulation”.13 We should take his remarks seriously. There is a danger that the lessons learned from the crisis could be thrown to the winds as the memory of the crisis fades.
Keeping in mind that all our non-standard monetary policy measures are temporary in nature, we will monitor further developments closely and ensure medium-term price stability for the euro area by acting in a firm and timely manner. Let me now explain our assessment in greater detail, starting with the economic analysis.