The European Central Bank decided in its meeting on Thursday, July 22nd, to keep its monetary policy unchanged and to keep the interest rates on major refinancing operations at the current zero levels, at 0.25% on marginal lending and at -0.50% on deposit facilities.
\The European Central Bank confirmed that it will maintain low interest rates until inflation reaches the bank’s target of 2%, and indicated that there may be a period when we may see inflation above 2% levels.
The APP will continue at the current monthly pace of €20 billion per month for as long as it is necessary to boost the economy, and its termination will be announced shortly before the start of the rate hike.
While the bank confirmed that it will continue to make additional purchases within the emergency program to combat the Corona epidemic PEPP, with a total amount of 1.850 billion euros, until at least the end of March 2022, or until the bank decides to stop it.
At the press conference, Bank President Christine Lagarde assured Lagarde that inflation expectations are still well below the bank’s target and that we may see a temporary rise in inflation and that despite the uncertainty affecting the economic outlook, the Eurozone economy is going through a strong recovery phase.
Lagarde’s statements and the contradiction of the European Central Bank with other central banks around the world such as the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of Canada, England and New Zealand in terms of talking about starting to gradually reduce the asset purchases program pushed the euro to retreat from its highest levels against the US dollar during the session at 1.1830 levels to close at 1.1767 levels and is trading in the morning Today, Friday, at 1.1771 levels.