The strong expansion of global demand engendered inflationary pressures, to which the monetary policy authorities responded, in part with a view to countering the possible impact on domestic prices of the expansion-driven increases in oil and raw material prices.
Given the current term structure, if there were no new purchases, the stock of bonds held by households would be halved by the end of 2017 (from around € billion to € billion), and would fall below € billion in 2020.