Fears of Ongoing Deflation Sparked QE Launch

Fears of continued deflation in the euro zone spurred the European Central Bank’s (ECB) Governing Council to launch its controversial quantitative easing program in January, minutes of the key policy meeting revealed.

The document—the first-ever minutes of an ECB policy meeting—also showed that policymakers “broadly shared” the view that further stimulus was needed in an effort to help kickstart the moribund euro zone economy.

“Taking into account both the weakened medium-term outlook for price stability and the smaller than envisaged monetary stimulus…the prevailing degree of monetary policy accommodation was seen to fall short,” the minutes said.  “Against this background, there was a broadly shared view that the conditions were fully in place for taking additional monetary policy action at the current meeting.”

CNBC

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