•  Fourth, the Eurosystem’s operational framework has, since the creation of the euro, allowed financing to be provided to banks for several months (three months), which is not generally the case for other central banks.
According to our primary mandate, our definition of price stability means an inflation rate below but close to 2% over the medium term. And over the 12 years since the launch of EMU, the average annual inflation rate in the euro area has been 1.97%. This is the best result of a major central bank in the euro area over the last 50 years.