As has been described in the minutes of these meetings, members of the Policy Board have closely examined economic and financial conditions to determine whether deflationary concern has been dispelled.
Moreover, economic activity would be subdued, there would be fewer jobs, and a sound public budget would be more difficult to achieve, even in Germany. Silently giving up on the commonly agreed inflation objective, which has served the ECB well for the last 13 years, is not an option. This would make our monetary policy less credible and would in itself create instability.