cent. a continued rise in prices could have a negative impact so it is important that the government does not encourage this. the dutch situation is mentioned. i refer to the june version of danmarks nationalbank's monetary review, which includes an article on the netherlands. the issue of establishment of a petroleum fund would require further consideration ; after all, the lessons learned from the social pension fund are not exactly uplifting. in respect of business support, it would be useful to have statistics to underpin decision - making. the traffic section includes interesting points of view, as well as a somewhat discouraging outlook. traffic is getting worse, the number of cars is rising, transport of goods is also increasing, the possibilities of switching to rail transport are extremely limited, and a road - pricing system is not currently in the pipeline. at the same time, taxation does not necessarily ensure appropriate behaviour. signs point to more congestion on the roads.

the determination of the eurosystem to fight inflation. as christine lagarde said at last week's ecb press conference, " inflation is projected to remain too high for too long. " ladies and gentlemen, 2 / 5 bis - central bankers'speeches we all know that the effects of monetary policy show up with a time lag. this means that it takes some time before the economy fully digests and incorporates policy changes. recent financial market volatility has added another layer of uncertainty. all this underlines the importance of a data - dependent approach to the governing council's policy rate decisions. three components – or determinants – are key here : first : the assessment of the inflation outlook based on incoming economic and financial data. second : the dynamics of underlying inflation. third : the strength of monetary policy transmission. on this third point, we are beginning to see the transmission of monetary policy measures through the credit channel. it remains to be seen if and to what extent the recent tensions in parts of the banking sector will lead to a further tightening of financing conditions. but to be clear, the underlying price pressures in germany and the euro area remain high. if monetary policy fails to tame them, the cost to our economies would be much higher. thus, it is the responsibility of the eurosystem to ensure a timely return of inflation to the 2 % medium - term target. 3. 3 scaling back app march also marks the starting point for shrinking the size of the eurosystem's asset purchase programme, or app. in concrete terms, this means that the central banks in the eurosystem will reduce their bond holdings by not replacing eur 15 bn of maturing securities each month. from a market - functioning perspective, there are good reasons for taking such a measured approach. first : the ease of absorption of higher bond volumes hinges on how market participants evaluate the outlook for inflation and the expected rate path, amongst other things. second : having suffered substantial mark - to - market losses in their fixed income portfolios last year, investors remain vigilant about interest rate risk weighing on the valuation of their portfolios. a large share of this year's elevated bond issuance will most likely hit the market in the first half of this year. central banks have little experience with the process of balance sheet tightening. certainly, the process of quantitative tightening will not simply be the mirror image of quantitative easing. importantly, markets reacted calmly to the eurosystem's