Speaking at a conference of the Herbert-Giersch Foundation in Frankfurt, the ECB's Otmar Issing said that the ECB's decision to cut interest rates came after it was able to quantify an upward distortion in M3 money supply growth. He argued that this strengthened the bank's monetary policy strategy, because it shows it takes the first pillar of its strategy seriously (M3 is part of the first pillar of the ECB's monetary policy).

If the ECB had decided to prepare markets for an easing once it was