NORDIC and Germanic opposition to unconventional monetary policy is crumbling, so it seems. On March 25th, in interviews with Market News and the Wall Street Journal, two of the more hawkish members of the European Central Bank's governing council hinted that further monetary easing may be on the cards for the euro area. The euro obligingly sank on foreign-exchange markets.

First, Jens Weidmann, president of the German Bundesbank, told Market News that quantitative easing was no longer "out of the question", having previously ruled it out as a legitimate policy tool for the ECB. Then, Erkki Liikanen, Governor of the Bank of Finland, also seemed to open the door to this type of policy. He told the Wall Street Journal that, even with interest rates at record low levels, "we haven't exhausted our manoeuvering room" on monetary policy, and that "the question of negative deposit rates, in my mind, isn't any longer a controversial issue".

Other members of the ECB's governing council also seem to be more open to using a more unconventional range of policy tools. Jozef Makuch, the governor of the National Bank of Slovakia, said yesterday that quantitative easing was one option being considered, and said that there was growing support for reflationary policies: "Several policy makers are ready to adopt non-standard measures to prevent slipping into a deflationary environment."

Such a change in attitudes is probably due to three factors. First, the consensus views among Nordic and Germans economists has shifted over the last year or so. The mood at academic conferences has become less hostile towards unconventional monetary policies, and the fear of unintended consequences from quantitative easing is much reduced (although a few economists are growing more concerned about the effect of monetary stimulus on inequality).

But the shift also reflects rising worries in two other areas. More economists are fretting about the risks of getting stuck in a deflationary trap. Inflation in the euro area has been stuck at less than 1% since October; in February it fell to 0.7%.

Even worse, business confidence has been hit in central Europe by the Crimea crisis. On March 25th the latest results for the Ifo Institute for Economic Research's business-climate index suggested a sharp fall in economic confidence in Germany. The fear of a drop in demand in Europe's economic powerhouse has increased support for policies such as negative interest rates or quantitative easing being used to counteract the risk of a damaging slowdown.

However, launching unconventional monetary policies could still prove problematic. The German constitutional court ruled last month that the ECB’s bond rescue plan, Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT), is contrary to European law. And there has been little sign, as of yet, that German public opinion, or the attitudes of the government they recently elected, are becoming more favourable towards such a policy agenda. In short, there's still a long way to go before we see the ECB set QE free.