In exceptional circumstances, when severe distortions in financial markets emerge (reflected, for instance, in volatile and rising money market spreads), a more non-standard liquidity management by the central bank may be needed without jeopardising the central bank’s main monetary policy objective.
Stressing the importance of the monetary pillar at the time of the introduction of the euro must not be interpreted as suggesting that, now that the ECB has matured, we do not need it any more. In fact, in  1  See, for example, Trichet (2005a,b)  2  See, for example, Assenmacher-Wesche and Gerlach (2006), Kugler and Kaufmann (2005) and Hofmann (2006).