The European Central Bank raises interest rates to 3%

The Governing Council will stay the course in raising interest rates significantly at a steady pace and in keeping them at levels that are sufficiently restrictive to ensure a timely return of inflation to its 2% medium-term target.

Accordingly, the Governing Council decided to raise the three key ECB interest rates by 50 basis points and it expects to raise them further. In view of the underlying inflation pressures, the Governing Council intends to raise interest rates by another 50 basis points at its next monetary policy meeting in March and it will then evaluate the subsequent path of its monetary policy. Keeping interest rates at restrictive levels will over time reduce inflation by dampening demand and will also guard against the risk of a persistent upward shift in inflation expectations. In any event, the Governing Council’s future policy rate decisions will continue to be data-dependent and follow a meeting-by-meeting approach.

A tale of two decades. The ECB’s monetary policy at 20

The Governing Council  also decided on the modalities for reducing the Eurosystem’s holdings of securities under the asset purchase programme (APP). As communicated in December, the APP portfolio will decline by €15 billion per month on average from the beginning of March until the end of June 2023, and the subsequent pace of portfolio reduction will be determined over time. Partial reinvestments will be conducted broadly in line with current practice. In particular, the remaining reinvestment amounts will be allocated proportionally to the share of redemptions across each constituent programme of the APP and, under the public sector purchase programme (PSPP), to the share of redemptions of each jurisdiction and across national and supranational issuers.

For the Eurosystem’s corporate bond purchases, the remaining reinvestments will be tilted more strongly towards issuers with a better climate performance. Without prejudice to the ECB’s price stability objective, this approach will support the gradual decarbonisation of the Eurosystem’s corporate bond holdings, in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Asset purchase programme (APP) and pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP)

The Governing Council intends to continue reinvesting, in full, the principal payments from maturing securities purchased under the APP until the end of February 2023. Subsequently, the APP portfolio will decline at a measured and predictable pace, as the Eurosystem will not reinvest all of the principal payments from maturing securities. The decline will amount to €15 billion per month on average until the end of June 2023 and its subsequent pace will be determined over time.

As concerns the PEPP, the Governing Council intends to reinvest the principal payments from maturing securities purchased under the programme until at least the end of 2024. In any case, the future roll-off of the PEPP portfolio will be managed to avoid interference with the appropriate monetary policy stance.

ECB raises interest rates for first time in eleven years

 

The Governing Council will continue applying flexibility in reinvesting redemptions coming due in the PEPP portfolio, with a view to countering risks to the monetary policy transmission mechanism related to the pandemic.

Refinancing operations

As banks are repaying the amounts borrowed under the targeted longer-term refinancing operations, the Governing Council will regularly assess how targeted lending operations are contributing to its monetary policy stance.

More information: European Central Bank