Neither this decision nor the termination, as planned, of the purchases under the Covered Bonds Purchase Programme in June 2010 has caused any new market tensions. On the contrary, we continue to see a gradual normalisation in the markets [slide 5: covered bond spreads]. 10. However, we still provide unlimited liquidity at a fixed rate in the remaining operations.
We have announced that we will do so at least until the end of this year’s third maintenance period (on 13 April 2011). Furthermore, the Securities Markets Programme is still in place, although purchases have been relatively small lately. Thus, the operational modalities and the SMP are the only crisis-related instruments left for phasing out and exit. 11.