In response to "persistent" low inflation, the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) on Thursday 25 July asked its services to prepare new measures that would further ease an already very accommodating monetary policy, including a reduction in interest rates or a resumption of the quantitative easing (QE) operation.
"The Governing Council also underlined the need for a highly accommodative stance of monetary policy for a prolonged period of time, as inflation rates, both...