About two weeks before the decision is to be taken, a monetary policy decision-making base is presented to the Executive Board. Normally, these preparation meetings are held for one or two days. The first part of the preparation involves most economists from APP and some people from AFS, AFM and the Communications Secretariat. The aim of this meeting is to provide the Executive Board with the information and data they need to be able to begin to form a view of the future of the economy and monetary policy. Staff from mainly APP present results of analyses on questions identified early in the process. The forecasts and the motivations for them are presented and there is a discussion between the members of the Executive Board and economists at the department on the main scenario and alternative scenarios. Important assumptions and factors that affect economic prospects, such as developments abroad, in financial conditions or specific domestic factors that have an effect on the real economy and/or inflation, are addressed. This is also an opportunity for the Executive Board to ask detailed questions directly to experts at APP and to order further analyses they may need for the decision.

During the second part of the preparation, the focus is on the monetary policy discussion and a more limited group of staff attend this meeting. APP presents various monetary policy options with regard to the repo rate and other measures to enable a structured discussion of monetary policy considerations. On the basis of this information, individual members express their views of the forecasts and monetary policy. The Executive Board can also make additional requests for information and the results of these are presented at a follow-up meeting a day or so later. The monitoring of data and how these affect assessments in the main scenario or the risks surrounding the forecasts will continue until the monetary policy meeting.