MNI POLICY: No Policy Changes for Lagarde's First ECB Decision

By Luke Heighton

     FRANKFURT (MNI) - The European Central Bank kept key interest rates and

monetary policy measures unchanged Thursday. 

     The statement after Christine Lagarde's first Governing Council monetary

policy meeting as ECB president mirrored almost exactly the language used by her

predecessor, Mario Draghi, with the only difference reflecting the fact that the

asset purchase programme restarted on Nov. 1, at a monthly pace of EUR20

billion.

     Key ECB interest rates will remain "at their present or lower levels until

it has seen the inflation outlook robustly converge to a level sufficiently

close to, but below, 2% within its projection horizon, and such convergence has

been consistently reflected in underlying inflation dynamics," the Governing

Council said.

     The ECB will also continue to reinvest, in full, the principal payments

from maturing securities purchased under the APP "for an extended period of time

past the date when it starts raising the key ECB interest rates, and in any case

for as long as necessary to maintain favourable liquidity conditions and an

ample degree of monetary accommodation."

--MNI Frankfurt Bureau; +49-69-720-146; email: luke.heighton@marketnews.com

--MNI London Bureau; +44 203 865 3829; email: jason.webb@marketnews.com