Monetary policy decisions and the outlook for price stability Since the start of this year the Governing Council has taken the following main monetary policy decisions. In December 1998 the Governing Council of the ECB announced that the level of interest on the main refinancing operation would be 3%.
Since then, the Governing Council has kept this rate unchanged, as it has judged that doing so was serving best the maintenance of price stability. The 12-month growth rate of the broad monetary aggregate M3 increased to 5.7% in January 1999 from 4.5% in December 1998. This increase is mainly due to rapidly growing overnight deposits, which account for around one-third of M3.