To give you the main message upfront: the legal framework of the European Economic and Monetary Union assigns the ECB’s monetary policy with the primary objective of maintaining price stability. It outlines the set of monetary policy instruments in general and provides the Governing Council with broad discretion in the choice of these instruments to achieve its objective.
Similarly, it will take a long time before structural reform promoted by Japanese firms leads to improved productivity and higher potential growth. Here, it should be noted that various forces other than structural adjustment influence the economy.