The Governing Council has stated that purchases “are intended to run until the end of September 2016, or beyond, if necessary, and, in any case, until we see a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation that is consistent with our aim of achieving inflation rates below, but close to, 2% over the medium term.” And it has flagged readiness to carry on purchasing more securities if necessary.
With this forward guidance the Governing Council indicates its commitment to a monetary policy which will realign inflation with our price stability objective. In January euro area headline inflation was a negative –0.6%, and has hovered around 0.2% over the past few months to August 2015.