Our primary mandate of preserving price stability, as well as our independence in fulfilling this mandate, were given by the people of Europe on a multinational and multipartisan basis. In being fully faithful to our mandate, we are faithful to the democratic will of the Member States.
The Bank therefore decided to double the monetary base in two years, and to achieve this it decided to massively purchase Japanese government bonds (JGBs), including those with longer remaining maturities. So far, the Bank has been pursuing the decided provision of the monetary base, and the year-on-year rate of increase in the monetary base was about 55 percent in February.