ECB's Panetta speech link is below. Initial.....>

ECB: ECB's Panetta speech link is below. Initial highlights below:

- "My main message is that downside risks are prominent, but a pre-emptive and

decisive policy response has put us in a much better position to avoid more

severe scenarios."

- "Deploying a rapid, determined and credible response - as the ECB has done -

can produce a virtuous circle, where risk taking is restored and more investors

choose to buy alongside the central bank, reinforcing its policy, rather than

using its interventions to sell to it.

Such a response in turn eases financial conditions for all sectors, removing

doubts about agents' ability to finance necessary spending, and thereby lifts

private expectations of future demand, moving the real economy into a better

equilibrium."

- "The case for acting pre-emptively and forcefully becomes even clearer when

one considers the potential "hysteresis" effects which the COVID-19 shock could

trigger."

Link: https://www.ecb.europa.eu//press/key/date/2020/html/ecb.sp200701.en.html