*  *  *  Ladies and gentlemen, the Vice-President and I would first like to express to all of you our best wishes for the New Year and welcome you to this press conference. Let me now report on the outcome of today’s meeting of the ECB’s Governing Council, which was also attended by Commissioner Almunia.
On the basis of our regular economic and monetary analyses, we have decided to keep the key ECB interest rates unchanged following the increase of 25 basis points on 1 December 2005. The information which has become available since then supports the assessment that an adjustment of our very accommodative monetary policy stance was warranted.