Looking ahead, the question is: how will our monetary policy toolbox evolve in the foreseeable future? Monetary policy will evolve in a data-dependent and time-consistent manner. The transition towards a normalisation will begin once we have established that there is a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation. Our assessment will be based on three criteria for the inflation outlook: convergence, confidence and resilience.
First, convergence: headline inflation will have to be on course to reach levels below, but close to, 2% by the end point of a meaningful medium-term horizon. Two things are noteworthy here: the salience of our inflation aim and the forward-looking perspective.