European Central Bank rates to stay low for a long time

There was considerable interest in the ECB Council meeting earlier this month to see the impact on its policy stance of a marked pick-up in the pace of growth in the eurozone.

As expected, the ECB key interest rates remained unchanged at –0.4% for the deposit rate and 0% for the refi rate.

There was no change either to its asset purchase or quantitative easing (QE) programme, which is due to run until at least the end of this year and probably beyond.