Third, the European Central Bank’s announcement last August of its “outright monetary transactions” program – through which it guarantees eurozone members’ sovereign debt, subject to policy conditionality – has contributed significantly to subduing financial turbulence in the eurozone. But the OMT scheme has not been reinforced by a reduction in key interest rates, which would boost inflation in core countries with external surpluses and thus help to close the competitiveness gap with the periphery.