Let me turn back to the first hearing of this Parliament’s term which took place with my predecessor in September 2009. At the time, the economy was just bottoming out in the aftermath of the great contraction which had ensued after Lehman’s failure. We were witnessing negative inflation rates. In this environment, the outlook was seen to be broadly in line with price stability.
Inflation was projected to increase toward levels close to 2%. The key ECB interest rates were kept on hold at the very low level to which they had been brought in several stages since the autumn of the preceding year. Some phasing-out of non-standard measures was announced. However, in May 2010, sovereign debt markets froze in various euro area Member States.