Thanks to the possibility to separate standard and non-standard monetary policy actions, our non-standard measures do not restrict in any way our capacity to tighten the monetary policy stance when necessary. This has been clearly demonstrated by the Governing Council’s repeated decisions to change interest rates over the course of this year, while maintaining its non-standard monetary policy measures.
In turn, our non-standard measures are temporary in both their nature and scope. Once the impairments to the transmission process disappear they can be phased out, whereas the standard interest rate policy remains. In fact, many of our non-standard monetary policy measures phase out automatically, for example long-term refinancing operations at fixed rates at extended maturities, if they are not explicitly renewed.