European Central Bank lowers key interest rates by 25bps

June 06, 2024 (MLN): The European Central Bank (ECB) has decided to lower the three key ECB interest rates by 25 basis points with effect from June 12, 2024.

Accordingly, the interest rate on the main refinancing operations and the interest rates on the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility will be decreased to 4.25%, 4.50% and 3.75% respectively.

Based on an updated assessment of the inflation outlook, the dynamics of underlying inflation, and the strength of monetary policy transmission, it is now appropriate to moderate the degree of monetary policy restriction after nine months of holding rates steady.

Since the Governing Council meeting in September 2023, inflation has fallen by more than 2.5 percentage points and the inflation outlook has improved markedly.

Underlying inflation has also eased, reinforcing the signs that price pressures have weakened, and inflation expectations have declined at all horizons.

Monetary policy has kept financing conditions restrictive. By dampening demand and keeping inflation expectations well anchored, this has made a major contribution to bringing inflation back down.

At the same time, despite the progress over recent quarters, domestic price pressures remain strong as wage growth is elevated, and inflation is likely to stay above target well into next year.

The latest Eurosystem staff projections for both headline and core inflation have been revised up for 2024 and 2025 compared with the March projections.

Staff now see headline inflation averaging 2.5% in 2024, 2.2% in 2025, and 1.9% in 2026. For inflation excluding energy and food, staff projects an average of 2.8% in 2024, 2.2% in 2025 and 2% in 2026.

Economic growth is expected to pick up to 0.9% in 2024, 1.4% in 2025 and 1.6% in 2026.

The Governing Council is determined to ensure that inflation returns to its 2% medium-term target in a timely manner.

It will keep policy rates sufficiently restrictive for as long as necessary to achieve this aim. The Governing Council will continue to follow a data-dependent and meeting-by-meeting approach to determining the appropriate level and duration of restriction.

In particular, its interest rate decisions will be based on its assessment of the inflation outlook in light of the incoming economic and financial data, the dynamics of underlying inflation and the strength of monetary policy transmission.

The Governing Council is not pre-committing to a particular rate path.

The Governing Council today also confirmed that it will reduce the Eurosystem’s holdings of securities under the pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP) by €7.5 billion per month on average over the second half of the year.

The modalities for reducing the PEPP holdings will be broadly in line with those followed under the asset purchase programme (APP).

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