Secondly, the improved economic situation was used for serious fiscal consolidation. To sum up: The German economy was quite strong, when the first harbingers of turmoil were witnessed on the US housing market. In the meantime, we have experienced a very severe global financial crisis which caused the deepest global recession since World War II.
Considering all the new information and analyses which have become available since our meeting on 2 September 2010, we continue to expect price developments to remain moderate over the policy-relevant medium-term horizon. Recent economic data are consistent with our expectation that the recovery should proceed at a moderate pace in the second half of this year, with the underlying momentum remaining positive.