Specifically, it clarified that the ECB expects its policy rates to stay“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”.
By reassuring markets that policy rates will stay “at their present or lower levels” until there has been an improvement in the inflation outlook, the ECB reinforced the impact of the cut in the deposit facility rate. The Governing Council further decided to restart net asset purchases at a monthly pace of € billion from November onwards.