The European Central Bank held its key interest rates at their current record low here on Thursday, and is also likely to hold fire on other key policy moves for now, analysts said.
Holding its meeting at Brdo Castle outside Ljubljana, rather than the usual venue of the ECB’s Eurotower headquarters in Frankfurt, the bank’s decision-making governing council voted to keep its key refinancing or “refi” rate at the historic low level of 0.75 per cent, as widely expected.
And after unveiling the details of a revamped bond-purchase programme just last month, which has since greatly helped to ease market tensions, ECB chief Mario Draghi is not expected to announce any more crisis-fighting measures, but insist it is now up to governments to act, analysts said.
Shortly before in London, the Bank of England also held its key interest rates unchanged.
Draghi is scheduled to explain the reasoning behind the decision at a post-meeting news conference.
But the financial markets had priced in no policy changes this month amid expectations the bank is still assessing the impact of new measures announced last month.