European Central Bank policymakers acknowledged the eurozone's economic recovery is becoming stronger but kept stimulus and interest rates unchanged.
ADVERTISEMENTEuropean Central Bank policymakers have acknowledged the economic recovery in the eurozone is becoming stronger.
At the same time they kept stimulus programmes and interest rates unchanged at the regular ECB Governing Council meeting.
ECB head Mario Draghi quickly dismissed a question on whether the second round of France’s presidential election had influenced the timing of their decisions: “We actually don’t do monetary policy based on likely election outcomes.”
Draghi said he was more focused on the euro area’s “increasingly solid” and broad economic recovery but too weak inflation.
#Draghi: inflation outlook hasn’t changed “in terms of my criteria”. Checklist reminder. pic.twitter.com/XrGulzHXUE
— Maxime Sbaihi (@MxSba) April 27, 2017
On the threat to growth from Trump’s protectionist tendencies he said: “Perhaps the risk of trade protectionism may have somewhat receded. Certainly markets are in the course – not us but markets – are in the course of a reassessment of the US fiscal policy. And I frankly wouldn’t feel like going beyond that.”
Financial markets found Draghi’s comments on the eurozone economy more cautious than they had expected and the euro fell against the dollar.
#Euro trades on day’s low as Draghi has turned very dovish in the course of the press conference. pic.twitter.com/cE2ym6m84z
— Holger Zschaepitz (@Schuldensuehner) April 27, 2017
The central bank remains under pressure, particularly from German policymakers, to start winding down stimulus and look towards raising interest rates.
“There’s enough from today to suggest that we might see a material change in policy in June,” James Athey, an investment manager at Aberdeen Asset Management, said.
“But no one should get ahead of themselves. There’s clearly not enough consensus on the Governing Council.”
