Before the start of Economic and Monetary Union, criticism was sometimes heard to the effect that the decentralised monetary policy framework was bound to become too complex and inefficient. However, from a technical point of view, highly developed information technologies make decentralisation entirely feasible. Consequently, after almost 22 months of experience with this system, such criticism is no longer heard.
There seems to be almost unanimous agreement that it works well. Indeed, the rapid integration of the euro area money market, with the crucial support of an integrated payment systems infrastructure, in particular the “TARGET” system, was a precondition for the successful implementation of the Eurosystem’s monetary policy.