Furthermore, given the controversy that its announcement of the OMT program has incited in Germany – not least with the Bundesbank – the ECB would certainly be discouraged from pursuing any Fed-like effort to push for lower interest rates along the yield curve. To ward off an offensive by German (and other) monetary hawks, who maintain that the ECB has opened the door to debt monetization, the Bank is bound to err on the side of orthodoxy in the coming months.