In the run-up to stage three of European economic and monetary union, however, more heat was generated by the debate on which monetary policy strategy should be used to reach the objective than by the precise definition of what is deemed to be compatible with price stability.
In the upshot, the Eurosystem today is relying on two pillars for attaining its quantitative idea of price stability: on the one hand, on a comparison of monetary growth with a reference value for the movement of the broad money stock M3; and, on the other, on a broadly-based analysis of the prospects for future price movements in the euro area.