The ECB’s response to the financial crisis  Let me now turn to the ECB’s responses to the financial crisis. Following the intensification of the financial crisis in September of last year – and against the background of rapidly receding inflationary pressures – we have taken monetary policy measures that are unprecedented in terms of their nature, scope and magnitude.
These measures fall into two categories: first, standard measures in the form of interest rate changes; second, what have become known as “non-standard” measures. The latter, taken together, constitute what I would call the “toolkit” for the ECB’s policy of enhanced credit support. Interest rates Let me begin with interest rates, the standard indicators of stance of monetary policy.