The European Central Bank (ECB) has decided to maintain its current monetary policy. This decision comes as the central bank continues to monitor economic conditions in the Eurozone. No changes were made to interest rates or the quantitative easing program.
The European Central Bank (ECB) announced today that it would hold steady on its current monetary policy. The decision, widely expected by analysts, reflects the ECB’s ongoing assessment of the Eurozone’s economic outlook.
Key Interest Rates Unchanged
The ECB’s governing council decided to leave the key interest rates unchanged:
- The interest rate on the main refinancing operations remains at 0.00%.
- The interest rate on the marginal lending facility stays at 0.25%.
- The interest rate on the deposit facility remains at -0.50%.
Quantitative Easing to Continue
The ECB also confirmed that it would continue its asset purchase programme (quantitative easing) at a pace of €20 billion per month. The program is expected to continue for as long as necessary to reinforce the accommodative impact of its policy rates, and to end shortly before it starts raising the key ECB interest rates.
Economic Outlook
In its statement, the ECB noted that the Eurozone economy continues to face headwinds, including global trade tensions and geopolitical uncertainties. However, the central bank also expressed confidence that its monetary policy measures would continue to support economic growth and inflation over the medium term.
Future Guidance
The ECB reiterated its forward guidance, stating that it expects interest rates to remain at their present levels until it has seen the inflation outlook robustly converge to a level sufficiently close to, but below, 2% within its projection horizon, and such convergence has been consistently reflected in underlying inflation dynamics.