June ECB meeting: Slightly less accommodative forward guidance

At its regular monetary policy meeting on Thursday 8 June, the ECB Governing Council kept key policy interest rates unchanged and its asset purchase programme of EUR60bn intact until December 2017 (or beyond if necessary), as widely expected. Nevertheless, the ECB adopted a slightly less accommodative forward guidance, removing the reference to “lower levels”, expecting interest rates to “remain at present” levels for an extended period of time. According to ECB President Mario Draghi, the removal of the easing bias on interest rates was largely attributed to disappearing deflationary risks.