This has been a very significant achievement in a relatively short period of time and has been an important factor in permitting euro area interest rates to remain accommodative, even after last week's interest rate rise. I would like to comment briefly on last week's move and to emphasise its consistency with the monetary policy strategy we have in place.
It included € billion relating to property and € billion of core SME credit. It is noteworthy that there were declining levels of SMEs accessing credit before the pandemic. The application rates for credit by SMEs was lower than most peers across Europe.