mario draghi : ecb press conference - introductory statement introductory statement by mr mario draghi, president of the european central bank, and mr luis de guindos, vice - president of the european central bank, frankfurt am main, 24 october 2019. * * * 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 dombrovskis, and the incoming president, ms lagarde. based on our regular economic and monetary analyses, we decided to keep the key ecb interest rates unchanged. we expect them to remain at their present or lower levels until we have seen the inflation outlook robustly converge to a level sufficiently close to, but below, 2 % within our projection horizon, and such convergence has been consistently reflected in underlying inflation dynamics. as decided at our last meeting in september, we will restart net purchases under our asset purchase programme ( app ) at a monthly pace of €20 billion as from 1 november. we expect them to run for as long as necessary to reinforce the accommodative impact of our policy rates, and to end shortly before we start raising the key ecb interest rates. we also intend to continue reinvesting, in full, the principal payments from maturing securities purchased under the app for an extended period of time past the date when we start 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. the governing council reiterated the need for a highly accommodative stance of monetary policy for a prolonged period of time to support underlying inflation pressures and headline inflation developments over the medium term. in particular, the governing council ’ s forward guidance will ensure that financial conditions adjust in accordance with changes to the inflation outlook. in any case, the governing council continues to stand ready to adjust all of its instruments, as appropriate, to ensure that inflation moves towards its aim in a sustained manner, in line with its commitment to symmetry. the incoming data since the last governing council meeting in early september confirm our previous assessment of a protracted weakness in euro area growth dynamics, the persistence of prominent downside risks and muted inflation pressures. at the same time, ongoing employment growth and increasing wages continue to underpin the resilience of the euro area economy. the

is more limited now than before the previous crisis. on the other hand, some more optimistic points were made : for example, the banking sector is in much better shape now than before the last recession. what we didn ’ t discuss, but in my view is crucial to the euro area ’ s shock - absorbing capacity, are private risk - sharing channels. here the discussion about the capital markets union is very important. towards the end, some speakers stressed that when we have problems, we sometimes discuss and see things from a limited perspective, and that it is very important not to lose sight of the broader picture. the euro area is not just a collection of member states, but a big economic player in the world. we should therefore also try to respond to the shocks coming from global issues, such as trade wars or major productivity trends. narodna banka slovenska, imricha karvasa 1, 813 25 bratislava, slovak republic www. nbs. sk today we heard a lot of interesting ideas in many areas. i opened my presentation earlier today by mentioning my son who is now ten years old. but i also have an older daughter, and i know that the next ten years are usually much more difficult than the first ten. when i look at the twenty - year history of the euro, the same also applies ; nevertheless, i don ’ t think the trend is uniform, so i hope that slovakia will continue being a successful euro area member over the next ten years. thank you for your attention and your contributions. narodna banka slovenska, imricha karvasa 1, 813 25 bratislava, slovak republic www. nbs. sk