From the start of the crisis in August 2007, central banks across the world have engaged in large-scale coordinated actions to support liquidity conditions in the global money markets. More recently, national governments have acted to shore up the capital base of individual financial institutions. Regrettably, but understandably, they did so in a largely uncoordinated way.
First and foremost, prospects for price stability in the euro area remain favourable, thanks not least to the success of the ECB: whoever would have thought two or three years ago that the launch of the euro would be as smooth as it has proved to be?