I should first of all like to emphasise with all due clarity that the assignment of roles under the Maastricht Treaty does not provide for ex ante coordination of different economic policy areas in the sense of coordinated demand management. Incidentally, such coordination is neither desirable nor necessary if every policy area discharges its own responsibility.
Complying with our responsibility for price stability, we in the Governing Council of the ECB last Thursday decided to lower our interest rate for the main refinancing operations by 50 basis points. Based on both pillars of our strategy, that decision was taken in a forward-looking perspective.