you going to do about it? as i said, we take the expected path of the economy into account in our policy decisions. however, a slowdown does not mean that we will slide into a recession. what is happening right now is what we expected to happen. so are you reconsidering plans to end quantitative easing? at each meeting of the governing council we assess whether the economy is in line with our expected baseline scenario. if we identify a deviation, we analyse the reasons for it and the impact it is likely to have on inflation. let me remind you that our sole objective is to maintain price stability. the german economy, which is the largest economy in the euro area, has underperformed expectations. what does this mean for the euro area as a whole? the slowdown in the third quarter was mainly caused by the automotive industry, which was 1 / 2 bis central bankers'speeches affected by the diesel scandal and related aspects. but a slowdown in one quarter in one country is not sufficient to prompt a monetary policy response at the euro area level. we would have to see whether a slightly deeper slowdown in one quarter might not be followed by a slightly better performance in the following quarter. once the relevant data are available, we will assess the trend and the future path of the euro area economy. we will then judge whether it is still in line with our inflation expectations, as price stability is the only needle in our compass. how will brexit affect the euro area economy? the uk economy has been deeply integrated into the european one in very diverse sectors. inevitably, brexit will have some consequences. however, it is unclear which players will be relative winners or losers, as the consequences will not be evenly distributed. obviously, we would have preferred not to have brexit, because we are not eager to see unnecessary shocks to the economy. for me, the main concern is uncertainty, which has a negative impact on all sectors of the economy and on all countries. 2 / 2 bis central bankers'speeches

since january 1999 this standardised deduction has been set at 10 % for both types of securities. today, following a review of new statistical evidence available, the governing council decided to increase the standardised deduction to 30 %. this decision shall have effect as from the determination of the reserve requirement to be fulfilled in the maintenance period starting on 24 january 2000. a separate press release presenting this decision and some background information on standardised deductions from the reserve base will be issued to you here today. the governing council today approved the ecb ’ s budget for 2000, which gives the ecb the green light to recruit further staff needed to support the ongoing activities of the ecb. this will bring the ecb ’ s staff to slightly over 1, 000 ; the number of staff employed to date stands at 750. at its meeting on 18 november 1999 the governing council approved the publication of an update of the book on “ european union balance of payments statistical methods ” ( the “ b. o. p. book ” ). this important book documents the statistical methodologies applied in member states in compiling balance of payments statistics and, as such, improves the transparency of the compilation of euro area statistics. this new version includes additional chapters on : ( i ) investment income ; ( ii ) estimation methods, especially for goods, investment income and portfolio investment ; ( iii ) financial derivatives ; and ( iv ) the stocks compiled for international investment position statistics. the book was published on the ecb ’ s web site at 4 p. m. yesterday and will be available from the ecb in hard copy format during the course of next week. finally, let me inform you that the general council discussed the monetary policy objectives, strategies and intentions of the non - participating eu central banks against the background set by the monetary policy of the eurosystem. this is the second time that such an exercise has been undertaken since the ecb was established.