Simply stated, the monetary easing in February was to reduce the targeted call rate by some 0.25 percent, which was the same as the policy change on September 9 last year in terms of the size of reduction in the call rate. Nevertheless, the effects seem to have perhaps been much larger than generally expected.
The first group will be composed of the five largest countries; Germany, France, Italy, Spain and, in time, if it joins the euro area, the UK, will all be members of this group. Ireland will be in the second group, along with countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Finland, Greece, Portugal and some of the larger accession countries.