The ECB Governing Council took timely, appropriate and proportionate action to respond to the cyclical downturn and the worsening inflation outlook by adopting a very broad set of expansionary measures.
It decided to restart, effective tomorrow, net asset purchases at a monthly pace of € billion (they had reached € billion per month between April 2016 and March 2017); to reduce by 10 basis points, to -0.5 per cent, the interest rates on banks’ deposits with the Eurosystem; and to lower the cost and extend the maturity of targeted longer-term refinancing operations.