In fact, in both situations we based our decision on both pillars of the strategy and also assessed the prevailing monetary developments at the time in the light of other information available. When we cut interest rates on 8 April, only two months of monetary data for 1999 were available. At that point in time, the three-month moving average for M3 stood at 5.1%.
Let me recall that we had always emphasised that “substantial or prolonged deviations from the reference value under normal circumstances signal risks to price stability in the medium term”. However, the data showed that M3 growth was only slightly above the reference value then and that there was not evidence as yet of a prolonged deviation.