Against this background, in its June meeting the Governing Council of the ECB decided to confirm its very accommodative monetary policy stance. ECB interest rates are expected to remain at their present or lower levels until we have seen the inflation outlook robustly converge to our target and such convergence has been consistently reflected in underlying inflation dynamics.
We will also continue to conduct net asset purchases under the pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP) until at least the end of March 2022 and, in any case, until we judge that the COVID crisis phase is over.