All members of the institution’s Monetary Council and Government supported the decision to keep interest rates unchanged in the eurozone, as revealed by the minutes of this meeting.
A member of the ECB Governing Council considered that the current cycle of interest rate cuts has come to an end due to favorable outlooks expected to persist.
However, another member argued that it was important for the ECB to remain “completely open to the potential need to lower interest rates further,” according to the meeting minutes.
The ECB concluded at the end of October that inflation prospects had barely changed and that new data confirmed the economy continued to grow despite the challenging global environment, as stated in the meeting minutes.
These unchanged prospects supported maintaining the monetary policy.
Nevertheless, economic prospects are uncertain due to global trade disputes and geopolitical tensions, even though some agreements have mitigated certain growth risks.
This uncertainty could also justify maintaining interest rates, adds the ECB in the meeting minutes from the end of October.
“The Governing Council was now in a good place from a monetary policy perspective, although this should not be seen as a fixed place,” according to the document.
For the Governing Council, it was also important “to maintain all options for upcoming meetings and be agile to react swiftly” to risks or impacts if necessary.
The ECB considers inflation prospects to be more uncertain than usual and that there are risks of significant impacts on both inflation and growth in either direction.
Therefore, the ECB did not want to commit to future interest rate decisions.
