The ECB is not suffering "anxiety"
on anti-euro parties and attacks on Germany's trade surplus are
unjustified, European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi said
Thursday.
Economic risks remain in the eurozone but they are lower than
in the past, said Draghi, had been expected to rule out such
risks by some economists.
The ECB is far from crying victory over inflation, ECB chief
Draghi said.
"The risk of deflation has practically disappeared" even
though "we are still far from being able to cry victory" on
inflation, he said, adding that more than four million jobs
created are "the response to those who feared that the
quantitative easing would create iniquities, benefiting the
rich," since "the fairest measure of all is to create jobs".
The recovery "seems to be gathering pace" and nominal
inflation "has again increased largely because of energy and
food prices" but "basic inflation continues to be weak", Draghi
said.
The euro is irrevocable but now is the best time to improve
the eurozone's monetary union, Draghi said Thursday.
"The euro is here to stay," he said, adding that "rather, it
is a question of boosting prosperity, making this monetary union
work better".
The idea of a multi-speed EU is that "not all countries are
ready to proceed together in the same way" and "as far as I've
understood the meaning is that it will be an open accord,
available to any other country who wants to join," Draghi said,
adding that he did not know "enough" and was keen to learn more
at the EU summit "tonight".
The ECB left rates unchanged and Draghi confirmed that the
ECB will cut purchases under its asset purchase programme from
the current 80 billion euros to 60 billion euros per month
beginning in April through December 2017, as part of its
quantitative easing (QE) policy.
The ECB said that it intends to keep interest rates at the
current level or lower for a prolonged period of time, even
beyond the end of its quantitative easing programme, which is
expected to end in December 2017.
The ECB announced that it will leave interest rates on hold,
with the main rate at a historically low 0%, the deposit rate at
-0.4%, and the marginal lending rate at 0.25%.
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