ECB President Christine Lagarde and Vice-President Luis de Guindos explained the Governing Council's monetary policy decisions and answered questions from journalists at the Governing Council press conference held on 12 December 2019 in Frankfurt am Main. #eudebates #ECB #Lagarde #Guindos #MonetaryPolicy #Economy #Growth #PressConference
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our press conference. Today is the first time that I have had the privilege and pleasure of chairing the monetary policy meeting of the Governing Council of the ECB. I am delighted to proceed now with reporting on the outcome of our meeting, together with the Vice-President. The Governing Council meeting was also attended by the Commission Executive Vice-President, Mr Dombrovskis.
Based on our regular economic and monetary analyses, we decided to keep the key ECB interest rates unchanged. We expect them to remain at their present or lower levels until we have seen the inflation outlook robustly converge to a level sufficiently close to, but below, 2% within our projection horizon, and such convergence has been consistently reflected in underlying inflation dynamics.
On 1 November we restarted net purchases under our asset purchase programme (APP) at a monthly pace of €20 billion. We expect them to run for as long as necessary to reinforce the accommodative impact of our policy rates, and to end shortly before we start raising the key ECB interest rates.
We also intend to continue reinvesting, in full, the principal payments from maturing securities purchased under the APP for an extended period of time past the date when we start raising the key ECB interest rates, and in any case for as long as necessary to maintain favourable liquidity conditions and an ample degree of monetary accommodation.
The risks surrounding the euro area growth outlook, related to geopolitical factors, rising protectionism and vulnerabilities in emerging markets, remain tilted to the downside, but have become somewhat less pronounced.
According to Eurostat’s flash estimate, euro area annual HICP inflation increased from 0.7% in October 2019 to 1.0% in November, reflecting mainly higher services and food price inflation. On the basis of current futures prices for oil, headline inflation is likely to rise somewhat in the coming months. Indicators of inflation expectations stand at low levels. Measures of underlying inflation have remained generally muted, although there are some indications of a mild increase in line with previous expectations. While labour cost pressures have strengthened amid tighter labour markets, the weaker growth momentum is delaying their pass-through to inflation. Over the medium term, inflation is expected to increase, supported by our monetary policy measures, the ongoing economic expansion and solid wage growth.
Regarding fiscal policies, the euro area fiscal stance is expected to remain mildly expansionary in 2020, thus providing support to economic activity. In view of the weakened economic outlook, the Governing Council welcomes the Eurogroup’s call for differentiated fiscal responses and its readiness to coordinate. Governments with fiscal space should be ready to act in an effective and timely manner. In countries where public debt is high, governments need to pursue prudent policies and meet structural balance targets, which will create the conditions for automatic stabilisers to operate freely. All countries should intensify their efforts to achieve a more growth-friendly composition of public finances.
Likewise, the transparent and consistent implementation of the European Union’s fiscal and economic governance framework over time and across countries remains essential to bolster the resilience of the euro area economy. Improving the functioning of Economic and Monetary Union remains a priority. The Governing Council welcomes the ongoing work and urges further specific and decisive steps to complete the banking union and the capital markets union.
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The European Central Bank is the central bank for the euro and administers monetary policy within the Eurozone, which comprises 19 member states of the European Union and is one of the largest monetary areas in the world.
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At this meeting the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) decided that the interest rate on the main refinancing operations and the interest rates on the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility will remain unchanged at 0.00%, 0.25% and -0.50% respectively. The Governing Council expects the key ECB interest rates to remain at their present or lower 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.
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