Such a high degree of credibility was reflected in the developments of euro area long term interest rates, which by the beginning of 1999 had declined to around 4%, which was the level prevailing for the most credible and stable currencies, thus resulting for a number of countries and economies in a decline of around 9 percentage points since the beginning of 1995.
Since 1999 the ECB’s stability-oriented monetary policy and, overall, the ECB credibility in delivering price stability has been remarkably successful and has contributed to maintain financing costs - from the short term to the long term up to 30 years - at historically low levels.