Indeed, experience shows that in countries where social partners have taken into account the implications of their wage settlement decisions on competitiveness, the European and global market shares of their exports have been more resilient and job creation more dynamic. This is why structural reforms are crucial in the areas of tax and benefit systems, wage-setting mechanisms, including wage indexation, and labour legislation.
Our decision in December was based on the substantial improvement in the labor market and the Committee's confidence that inflation would return to our 2 percent goal over the medium term. Employment growth last year averaged a solid 220,000 per month, and the unemployment rate declined from 5.6 percent to 5.0 percent over the course of 2015.