We will now report on the outcome of today’s meeting of the Governing Council, which was also attended by Commissioner Almunia. On the basis of its regular economic and monetary analyses, at today’s meeting the Governing Council decided to leave the key ECB interest rates unchanged.
Almost all of these measures were targeted towards financial markets, nonbank financial institutions, and the real economy. Moreover, the unprecedented and in many ways unimaginable nature of the shock posed by the COVID event made it appropriate to take these steps when we did, to backstop the functioning of markets essential to the financial system.