mario draghi : ecb press conference – introductory statement introductory statement by mr mario draghi, president of the european central bank, frankfurt am main, 4 september 2014. * * * ladies and gentlemen, the vice - president and i are very pleased to welcome you to our press conference. we will now report on the outcome of today ’ s meeting of the governing council, which was also attended by the commission vice - president, mr katainen. based on our regular economic and monetary analyses, the governing council decided today to lower the interest rate on the main refinancing operations of the eurosystem by 10 basis points to 0. 05 % and the rate on the marginal lending facility by 10 basis points to 0. 30 %. the rate on the deposit facility was lowered by 10 basis points to – 0. 20 %. in addition, the governing council decided to start purchasing non - financial private sector assets. the eurosystem will purchase a broad portfolio of simple and transparent asset - backed securities ( abss ) with underlying assets consisting of claims against the euro area non - financial private sector under an abs purchase programme ( abspp ). this reflects the role of the abs market in facilitating new credit flows to the economy and follows the intensification of preparatory work on this matter, as decided by the governing council in june. in parallel, the eurosystem will also purchase a broad portfolio of euro - denominated covered bonds issued by mfis domiciled in the euro area under a new covered bond purchase programme ( cbpp3 ). interventions under these programmes will start in october 2014. the detailed modalities of these programmes will be announced after the governing council meeting of 2 october 2014. the newly decided measures, together with the targeted longer - term refinancing operations which will be conducted in two weeks, will have a sizeable impact on our balance sheet. these decisions will add to the range of monetary policy measures taken over recent months. in particular, they will support our forward guidance on the key ecb interest rates and reflect the fact that there are significant and increasing differences in the monetary policy cycle between major advanced economies. they will further enhance the functioning of the monetary policy transmission mechanism and support the provision of credit to the broad economy. in our analysis, we took into account the overall subdued outlook for inflation, the weakening in the euro area ’ s growth momentum over the recent past and the continued subdued monetary and credit dynamics. today ’ s decisions

luis de guindos : interview in expresso interview with mr luis de guindos, vice - president of the european central bank, and expresso, conducted by mr joao silvestre on 15 april 2020. * * * is this the greatest crisis in living memory? according to the international monetary fund ( imf ), this will be the worst downturn since the great depression. there is a great deal of uncertainty and, given this degree of uncertainty, we need to define and analyse several scenarios. the imf ’ s baseline scenario is very similar to other public and private sector forecasts. it ’ s important to bear in mind that the impact on the economy, which will be huge, is concentrated in the second quarter of the year – as well as in march – and that the impact will be severe, but temporary. this temporary aspect is important. the calculations point to a contraction in the second quarter by as much as 20 % compared with the previous quarter. and it will also have an impact on public finances and the financial markets. despite the uncertainty you have mentioned, is a rapid recovery possible in 2021? the key factor is the duration of the lockdown – the longer it lasts, the greater the impact. we hope that the containment measures will start to be eased over the coming months, reducing the negative impact on the economy, and that we will see a return to positive growth rates in the second half of the year. but it will be hard for the recovery in the second half of 2020 and 2021 to make up for this year ’ s downturn. is the ecb ’ s current monetary policy sufficient to deal with the economic impact of the coronavirus ( covid - 19 ), or can we expect additional measures soon? we have taken a number of key measures. in terms of monetary policy, our response to the situation has been very active, with three types of measure. first, we have provided liquidity to the banks, adjusting the rules on collateral for accessing liquidity - providing operations. european banks therefore have more liquidity at their disposal and at more favourable conditions. second, we have responded with the measures taken by the ecb banking supervision. to avoid a credit crunch, we have eased the requirements on capital held by european banks, the classification of non - performing loans and the accounting rules. and third, we have launched the €750 million pandemic emergency purchase programme ( pepp ), which will increase the total assets