 Ladies and gentlemen, Vice President and I are very pleased to welcome you to our press conference. We will now report on the outcome of today's meeting of the Governing Council. Based on our regular economic and monetary analysis, we decided to keep the key ECB interest rates unchanged. We expect them to remain at their present levels for an extended period of time and well past the horizon of our net asset purchases. Regarding non-standard monetary policy measures, we confirm that our net asset purchases at the current monthly pace of €60 billion are intended to run until the end of December 2017 or beyond if necessary, and in any case until the Governing Council sees a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation consistent with its inflation aim. The net purchases are made alongside reinvestments of the principal payments from maturing securities purchased under the asset purchase programme. The incoming information, including our new staff projections, confirms a broadly unchanged medium-term outlook for euro area economic growth and inflation. The economic expansion, which accelerated more than expected in the first half of 2017, continues to be solid and broad-based across countries and sectors. At the same time, the recent volatility in the exchange rate represents a source of uncertainty which requires monitoring with regard to its possible implications for the medium-term outlook for price stability. While the ongoing economic expansion provides confidence that inflation will gradually head to levels in line with our inflation aim, it has yet to translate sufficiently in stronger inflation dynamics. Measures of underlying inflation have ticked up slightly in recent months, but overall remain at subdued levels. Therefore, a very substantial degree of monetary accommodation is still needed for underlying inflation pressures to gradually build up and support headline inflation developments in the medium-term. If the outlook becomes less favourable or if financial conditions become inconsistent with further progress towards a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation, we stand ready to increase our asset purchase program in terms of size and or duration. This autumn, we will decide on the calibration of our policy instruments beyond the end of the year, taking into account the expected path of inflation and the financial conditions needed for a sustained return of inflation rates towards levels that are below but close to 2%. Let me now explain our assessment in greater detail, starting with the economic analysis. Euro area real GDP increased by 0.6%, quarter on quarter, in the second quarter of 2017, after 0.5% in the first quarter. High data point to continued broad-based growth in the period ahead. Our monetary policy measures are supporting domestic demand and have facilitated the leveraging process. Private consumption is underpinned by employment gains, which are also benefitting from past labor market reforms and by increasing household wealth. The recovery in investment continues to benefit from very favourable financing conditions and improvement in corporate profitability. Moreover, the broad-based global recovery will support Euro area exports. This assessment is broadly reflected in the September 2017 ECB staff macroeconomic projections for the Euro area. These projections foresee annual real GDP increasing by 2.2% in 2017, by 1.8% in 2018 and by 1.7% in 2019. Compared with the June 2017 Euro system staff macroeconomic projections, the outlook for real GDP growth has been revised up for 2017, reflecting the recent stronger growth momentum and is broadly unchanged thereafter. Risks surrounding Euro area growth outlook remain broadly balanced. On one hand, the current positive cyclical momentum increases the chances of a stronger than expected economic upswing. On the other hand, downside risks continue to exist, primarily relating to global factors and developments in foreign exchange markets. Euro area annual HICP inflation was 1.5% in August. Looking ahead on the basis of current futures prices for oil, annual rates of headline inflation are likely to temporarily decline towards the turn of the year, mainly reflecting base effects in energy prices. At the same time, measures of underlying inflation have ticked up moderately in recent months, but have yet to show convincing signs of a sustained upward trend. Domestic cost pressures, notably from labor markets, are still subdued. Underline inflation in Euro area is expected to rise gradually over the medium term, supported by our monetary policy measures, the continuing economic expansion, the corresponding gradual absorption of economic slack, and rising wages. This assessment is also broadly reflected in the September 2017 ECB staff macroeconomic projections for the Euro area, which foresee annual HICP inflation at 1.5% in 2017, 1.2% in 2018, and 1.5% in 2019. Compared with the June 2017 Euro system staff macroeconomic projections, the outlook for headline HICP inflation has been revised down slightly, mainly reflecting the recent appreciation of the Euro exchange rate. Turning to the monetary analysis, broad money, M3, despite some monthly volatility, continue to expand at a robust pace, with an annual rate of growth of 4.5% in July 2017, after 5% in June. As in previous months, annual growth in M3 was mainly supported by its most liquid components, with a narrow monetary aggregate M1, expanding at an annual rate of 9.1% in July 2017, down from 9.7% in June. The recovery in the growth of loans to the private sector, observed since the beginning of 2014, is proceeding. The annual growth rate of loans to non-financial corporations increased to 2.4% in July 2017, up from 2% in June, while the annual growth rate of loans to households remained stable at 2.6%. The pass-through of the monetary policy measures put in place since June 2014, continues to significantly support borrowing conditions for firms and households, access to financing notably for small and medium-sized enterprises, and credit flows across the Euro area. To sum up, a cross-check of the outcome of the economic analysis with the signals coming from the monetary analysis, confirmed the need for a continued, very substantial degree of monetary accommodation to secure a sustained return of inflation rates towards levels that are below but close to 2%. In order to rip the full benefits from our monetary policy measures, other policy areas must contribute decisively to strengthening the longer-term growth potential and reducing vulnerabilities. The implementation of structural reforms needs to be substantially stepped up to increase resilience, reduce structural unemployment, and boost Euro-era growth potential and productivity. Regarding fiscal policies, all countries would benefit from intensifying efforts towards achieving a more growth-friendly composition of public finances. A full, transparent, and consistent implementation of the Stability and Growth Act and of the macroeconomic imbalances procedure over time and across countries remains essential to bolster the resilience of the Euro-era economy. Strengthening economic and monetary union remains a priority. The Governing Council welcomes the ongoing discussions on further enhancing the institutional architecture of our economic and monetary union. We are now at your disposal for questions. Mr Ferris. Tom Ferris from the Wall Street Journal. Mr Draghi, you said that the Governing Council plans to decide on the calibration of your policy measures in the autumn. Did you have a preliminary discussion today? Did you discuss options for the future of QE? That's my first question. My second question is on the Euro exchange rate, which you mentioned, the volatility of the exchange rate is an economic concern. Do you think at its current level the Euro is a problem? Do you think it currently reflects the fundamentals of the Euro-era economy? Thanks. Thank you. Well, your questions lead me to give you a pretty short account of the discussion that has taken place today in the Governing Council, and so doing I will respond to both your questions. Clearly, all members of the Governing Council intervene speaking as far as the economic situation is concerned. They spoke on three topics, growth, inflation, and the exchange rate. On growth, there was a general recognition of the progress made by the Eurozone recovery. It's robust, it's broad-based, and it was recalled that six million jobs were created since 2013. This recovery is really the base for our confidence that inflation will eventually converge, but also, as I'll say in a moment, that patience is needed. And that's why the introductory statement just read to you says therefore a very substantial degree of monetary accommodation is still needed for underlying inflation pressures to gradually build up and support headline inflation developments in the medium term. On inflation, as I just read in the introductory statement, there was a downward revision, mostly due to the, or mainly due to the exchange rate appreciation. So there was a certain, I would say, broad dissatisfaction with the inflation, though noting, as I said in the introductory statement, the core inflation actually is doing slightly better. But so there was a broad dissatisfaction, I would say, tempered by the confidence that inflation will eventually converge to our objective. And this confidence, as I said a moment ago, is based on the good conditions and the good and improving and broadening conditions of the economy. So this, well I'll say the moment, how, but even looking at growth, how this recovery remains dependent on our monetary policy, which basically, if you look at the drivers of the economy, you see that consumption is doing well and consumption is doing well because of disposable income is increasing because of employment gains and because household's wealth is increasing as well. All these hinges on interest rates, low interest rates. Investment is doing very well because corporate profits are good and because interest rates are low. Exports are also doing well, although clearly we should expect consequences from the appreciation of the exchange rate. So now this leads me to talk about, to report to you what conversation was about the exchange rate. You wouldn't be surprised me saying, listening to me saying, hearing me saying that the exchange rate is not a policy target, but it's also, it's very important and very important for growth and inflation. And it's so important that the median term for inflation was revised downward in the staff's projections mainly due to the appreciation of the exchange rate, which means that we will have to take into account this element in our information set in our future policy decisions. So in the last monetary policy meeting there were concerns expressed by a few, and these concerns were now reiterated by most members at this meeting. And of course one issue that was discussed was how much of this appreciation is due to completely exogenous factors, how much is simply the natural outcome of the improved economic conditions in the Euro area. And opinions diverge, but there was by and large broad consensus on the fact, as I just read in an introductory statement, on the fact that the recent volatility in the exchange rate represents a source of uncertainty which requires monitoring, which requires monitoring with regard to its possible implications for the median term outlook for price stability. Now the other topic we discussed was basically the calibration of our policy instruments starting with next year. Now let me say often what was not discussed. What was not discussed was the sequence. So interest rates, as it's written here, interest rates will remain at their present levels for an extended period of time and well past the horizon of our night asset purchases. What was not discussed was changes in issuer limits to the program. What was discussed was various scenarios really, and I should say just before you ask me other questions, the discussion was very, very preliminary and it was meant to ask questions about the different scenarios and what the transmission channels of different scenarios was, rather than expressing policy options or policy preferences. Otherwise I would have reported to you about the policy decisions. So the discussions about different scenarios concerned the length of the program, the size of the monthly flows, and so it was, as I said, a very preliminary discussion, mostly geared to ask questions. And the pros and cons of different scenarios were discussed, but by and large on this point what the governing council will ask for is, will want to see is the work by the committees that were tasked to continue working on that so they will have full information. But one thing is clear, the bottom line is that interest rates will stay, as it's written here, at the present level for an extended period of time and well past the horizon of our night asset purchases. Mrs. Korimovsky. Two questions. The first one, you said the further appreciation of the, or the volatility of the exchange rate will require monitoring. Should we think that, and you mentioned last time that, or it was actually an account, that it could lead to excessive tightening of monetary conditions? Are we actually at that stage already when it comes to tightening of monetary conditions? That's my first question. Could you, right now, commit that we would know the decision about the future of the QE program? We'll find out about it in October or it will be delayed even further until the December meeting. Thank you. Following the recent appreciation of the euro, financial conditions unquestionably tightened in the euro area. But they remain broadly supportive of the non-financial companies, enterprises. The second question is about the date. We had a brief exchange on that. The governing council is, and as you might have seen, is, we reiterated it's this fall as the period when these decisions will be taken. Because the decisions are many complex and always one naturally sort of thinks about risks that may materialize in the coming weeks or months. So that is the caution about not specifying a date. Probably the bulk of these decisions will be taken in October. Ms. Trig? Thank you very much, Johanna Trig, Politico. I also have two questions. One, when you decide about the future of the QE program, what is your personal preference? Would you envisage then to sort of communicate a full roadmap or would you only communicate the next step ahead? For example, in the past you've said you'll reduce the monthly purchases. For example, by 20 billion, would you, for the next six months, and then you will brief us again a couple of months later? Or would you say, you know, I expect to reduce it by 20 billion now and then again after three months by another 20 billion. So basically, so we have a roadmap until the end of the program. I was asking about your personal preference if you have one. I don't. Okay. And then the second question is there seems to be, you know, when people discuss the future of your program, very often the potential scarcity of assets is mentioned. And so that, you know, people think you might exit not because the inflation environment is ready, but because there's nothing left to buy. Have you discussed at all changing the rules of the program just to convince markets that, you know, you can do more if you want to, just to dispel these doubts once and for all? Thank you very much. Thank you. No, we haven't discussed really the scarcity issue, because so far we've given plenty of evidence that whenever there were, by the way, these problems, these doubts were present at the very beginning of our program. And we've consistently shown that we've been able to cope with this issue quite successfully. The, as you may remember, the change allowing purchases below the DFR, the deposit facility rate, and below the one year maturity considerably expanded the eligible universe. So our program giving it more flexibility. And I'm pretty confident that when the policy decisions time comes, we'll certainly be able to exploit all the flexibility that the program has in its construction. Mr. Plickard? Some scientists wonder if the CV runs a risk of, like, kind of falling behind the curve, because markets have been expecting a decision for some time now. You don't give us a clue. Is it your task to clarify the road ahead and to stabilize expectations rather than to leave it until the very last second? Well, expectations are not destabilized at all, in my view. But in any event, I think policy decisions that have many dimensions are complex, need time to be taken, need the reasonable consensus to be undertaken. And as I said, the fall is the date that's been announced. And as I said before, probably, unless a risk that is not seen today materializes, we should be ready to give the bulk, to take the bulk of these decisions in October. Mr. Cope? Thank you, Eric Cope, Live Squawk News. My first question is, do you take national or member state political situations into consideration when you're considering when to announce a policy like the TAPER? Our program is a program that has been designed in order to pursue, in order to implement our mandate. And our mandate is the pursuing of price stability for the whole of the euro zone. In this sense, that's what determines the size, the design, the composition of our program, not specific national interests. And one can actually explain very clearly that whenever one sort of appears, when people seem to say, oh, you bought more bonds of one country and less of another, it's happened because of temporary technical factors that have been corrected in the subsequent months and weeks, weeks and months. So it's due mostly to liquidity considerations, the rhythm of the reinvestment program, one can easily explain that. So no, the answer to your point is no. I was thinking more about the German election, which is in a couple of weeks, whether or not that pushed your decision forward. A second question, you said that you'd like to take the money from the maturing bonds and use that in the bond buying program. Will it be used exclusively for that? Well, certainly, we said that we foresee a reinvestment program, and this reinvestment program, by the way, will become more and more sizable, of course, as our QE program has been continuing now for years. So the reinvestment program will become sizable and will continue. Yes, I mean, the use of bonds is for that purpose, to reinvest in bonds. Mr. Weisbach? Mr. President, first of all, congratulations to your birthday, belated. I hope you had a nice Sunday. I have two questions as well. Starting as well with one on the capital key, looking at the recent data for August, it shows that you have bought over-proportional, Italian, and also French bonds. So my question is going forward, are you going to buy the others, which you have bought under-proportional a lot more in the coming month? And the second question would also be on what we have been hearing from a couple of bank CEOs, Mr. Krein of Deutsche, Lloyd Blankfren of Goldman, they were all warning of bubbles, potential bubbles in markets. So how concerned are you about them? And they were also attributing those bubbles to a certain extent to the ultra-lose monetary policy stance, not only of your institution, of course, but also worldwide. Thank you. Thank you. On your first question, as I said before, temporarily, there are temporary deviations from the capital key that have always been temporary deviations from the capital key for the simple reason that countries, some countries do not participate to the QE program, Greece and Cyprus. So no wonder of that. There is nothing to and no mystery or no surprise there. There have been deviations, there will always be deviations from the capital key due to the liquidity conditions, due to the fact that we want to be as market neutral as possible in our purchases. So if you have very tight liquidity conditions in one market, you just slow down with purchases. You also, there are natural times of the year like it happened in August, it's going to happen in December again. So it's just when you slow down with purchases. So these deviations from the capital key don't indicate anything else from what I said. Now, on the potential financial stability risks stemming from monetary policies that are very accommodative for a long time, it certainly is a danger. But do we see that now? No, we don't see systemic danger coming from bubbles. If you look at the various markets, the stock market, the bond market, the prime commercial real estate is the only area where you actually see stretched valuations. But even in the residential real estate, you see situations where prices have been going up pretty fast in some large cities, in some countries, but not on average and not in other cities in the same countries or in other countries at the same speed. Having said that, if these sort of bubbles, by the, no, the other important consideration to make is even though we see stretched valuations in some markets, as I mentioned before, the prime commercial real estate market is one, we don't see the other component of a bubble which accompanied the crisis in the pre-crisis time, namely an increase in leverage. We see the credit remains pretty subdued all across the board. So that is absent. Also, one has to consider that even though we do see such situations at the local level, the answer to that should be macroprudential instruments by the national governments and not changes in monetary policy. That as far as the issues that have been raised in this conference. Thank you. Is it possible that at some point in the future you could widen the type of assets that you buy under your program, even as you pair it back, for example, in the field of stocks or non-performing loans? And a second question on the question of investment banks, global investment banks who want to come to places like Frankfurt after Britain leaves the European Union, what steps do you think supervisors need to take to ensure that they are under close supervision? Because, of course, big investment banks bring big risks. On the first question, it was not discussed. So I'm not in a position to comment on that. On the second question, if Mr. Castancio wants to answer. Yes, it's very simple. Of course, we are prepared. The single supervisory mechanism is prepared to deal with those type of institutions, some of them similar to institutions that already exist in the Euro area. So no problems, specific difficulties will come from that development. Mr. Malin. Jan Malin. Mr. President, if the exchange rate is a source of uncertainty, as you said, what can you really do about it if it continues and if there are overshootings? And my second question somehow relates to that, that the ECB is in a period of high uncertainty about its monetary policy. Other central banks, for example, in Norway or Sweden, try to reduce uncertainty by publishing also forecasts on interest rates. Why don't you do the same? Thank you. Thank you. On the first, you see, there are two sentences in the Doctorate State. At the same time, the recent volatility in the exchange rate represents a source of uncertainty which requires monitoring with regard to its possible implications for the medium-term outlook for price stability. And then you have another sentence that says, this autumn, we will decide on the calibration of our policy instruments beyond the end of the year, taking into account the expected path of inflation and the financial conditions needed for sustained return of inflation rates towards levels that are below but close to 2%. And now that says all. Now, on the second point, I don't think we are in a period of high uncertainty. I think we are in a period when we are studying what to do next year when the present program expires. Also, let me add that these changes published in the forecast are not new. They've been done, they've been made time several years ago as a matter of fact. I don't know whether they've been very successful in helping the central bank to get out of the uncertainty. If the uncertainty is the element and the metric, sometimes they've been successful, sometimes they've been judged not to be as so successful. So we have to be extremely cautious. The way staff projections are produced, the way they are communicated, even all our communication is the result of many, many years and the work of many, many people. So we learn from our history, from our experience, from other central banks' examples as well, but it's not something we can go lightly trying to do experiments. This issue, by the way, had been discussed by my predecessor when the one you mentioned about the Bank of Sweden, Bank of Norway at that time. Thank you. Mr. Barbera. Mr. Barbera. As president of the ECB, you cannot say which is the correct level of the exchange rate. But if I ask to Professor Draghi, when the exchange rate can become a problem, which is your answer? My answer is that I don't comment on levels of the exchange rate. I left the university many years ago, more than I want to remember. Mr. Madeleine. Thibaut Madeleine with the French newspaper Les Echos. What is the exchange rate you took for these projections, for the inflation projections and also growth projections and also could you explain us why you decided to announce the bulk of the decisions or to take the bulk of the decisions in October and why not in December since you may have new hindsight on growth and inflation projections since in December? Well, the answer to the second question is really who will announce when we are ready? We think we are going to be ready for much of what we have to decide by October. But as I said, the governing council is kind of reluctant to commit to a precise date. The sense is that in October we should be ready. But if we are not, then we postpone and the second thing is that we don't know exactly if any serious risk materializes which warrants such postponement. Right now judging from the way the work is going, we should be ready when I said. The projection, the rate that was used in the projections is around 1.18 vis-à-vis the US dollar. As you know, the exchange rate is fixed, is treated in the projections all the time as a constant and the value in the market of the cut-off date of the projections is the one that is inserted and considered in the projections. So it was mid-August. Ms. Jones. Thank you. Mr. Draghi, the euro seems to still be trading above the rate we've just referenced, the 1.18 rate, despite your comments. So does that concern you at all or would you comment on that? And for my second question, there seems to be a way, a little bit of a change in the way people are perceiving the ECB's reaction function. Infest is increasingly better in that you leave interest rates unchanged until 2019 and that these will be the primary tool to bring inflation back to target. One of the reasons being that there are concerns that you'll run out of assets to buy in that bond buying is more something you do to fight deflation and perhaps boost growth rather than fully return conditions to normal. So I guess my second question is would you broadly agree with that assessment that increasingly interest rates do become the primary tool? Well, I'm not in a position to say that because as I said we haven't discussed the first part, namely the actual numbers for what the APP program is going to be in next year. But I said one thing here, I said that we expect the interest rates to remain at their present levels for an extended period of time and well past the horizon of our net asset purchases. That I agree with that. You said about the interest, well look, the exchange rate, I don't know how much it's trading but we're talking about the 118 is roughly around 118 and it was August 14th. So we will have to see now it's, I'm told it's 120. Okay, but I don't comment about levels of exchange rates anyway. Ms. Mastro Buoni. Tonya Mastro Buoni, La Repubblica. Two questions, Mr. Draghi. The first one is you mentioned before the reform of the eurozone and but there are many, many ideas about this and especially about the Ministry of Finance. There are very different ideas coming from France or from Germany. Should you have the power to have a sort of intervention power in the balance sheet of the countries? Should it have a budget for growth and so on? And there are even many ideas about the ESM, how it should be reformed. What is your idea about this? I mean about the reform of the eurozone and how should it be and the new Ministry of Finance be. And the second question is there's a discussion going on between among economists about this risk of a low inflation era because I mean the growth is robust. You said it, the unemployment is going down and there's much liquidity in the markets but still the inflation is very weak. So should we be prepared to this risk of what do you think about this discussion of a low inflation era? Now the important aspect of the current discussion that's your first question about the European Monetary Union, its reforms, is that the member states have realized how incomplete is our monetary union at the present time and how such incompleteness has made the crisis that we're just coming out of more serious than it would have otherwise been. So it's to be welcome the fact that this, the member states because you see the task to discuss and design the reform of the Monetary Union is not the ECB's task, it's the member states task. So but it's welcome that they actually start this discussion. It's going to be a certainly complex discussion that will take place in the coming months. The ECB of course stands ready to help in this discussion but we are not party of this. Now your second question is should we be resigned to low inflation for any answers? Absolutely no. I said many times that inflation is now will eventually converge to our aim. What makes us confident that this happens? Essentially two factors. First the fact that we keep in place the very accommodative or the extraordinary degree of monetary accommodation. And the second is the broad robust solid recovery that we see across countries and across sectors now. This recovery is having a profound effect on the labor market. I mentioned before about the number of jobs being created since 2013, 6 million. But there are many other indicators that are given to you on other occasions showing the strength of this recovery that also now touches upon investment and the strength of consumption. This recovery gradually will close and it's actually closing the output gap and will gradually close the labor market slack. But this labor market slack is turning out to be bigger than was previously estimated as we went through this on another occasion why this is so. And nominal wages which are a primary driver of inflation are also lagging behind what one would have expected from such strong recovery across the board. And they're lagging behind for a variety of reasons. I've discussed this on another occasion and some of you were there when I gave a speech on that. But basically they have to do with backward-looking wage negotiations, trade union strategy geared mostly about stabilizing the job rather than going for wage increases, about low productivity, about other factors like the global value chain in a supply of factors. So there are lots of these factors. Now some of these factors will disappear quickly or quickly. None of them disappears quickly. Some of them will disappear first as the labor market slack is close. Some others will stay for a longer time but there's no question that with the ongoing recovery in the end our inflation rate will converge to our aim in the way we want, namely in a durable fashion and based on a self-sustained path where there is no need for our monetary policy any longer. So confidence, patience because we have to be patient for that and persistence however that's very important. We shouldn't sort of either change the definition because we don't reach that target or change or lose trust in our monetary policy, lose confidence in our monetary policy. That's the answer. Estonia is a eurozone countries. Its government agency has promoted the circulation of a cryptocurrency. What does the ice monetary policy authority think about this? So in Italy it was said that a parallel currency can be introduced in the form of tax credit. What is your opinion in this matter? I won't comment on the Italian intention but I will comment on the Estonian decision and no member state can introduce its own currency. The currency of the eurozone is the euro. Thank you. Mr. Draghi, the eurozone might enjoy a growth rate this year of about 2. x percent which is the highest growth rate we've had since 2007. So I would say the situation today is much better than 2007, much better than 2010 or 2012 but still, and that's my question, still the monetary policy is more loose than during the financial crisis. That's how to understand for me and for the general public, maybe you could try to explain it to me. First of all, we have a growth based recovery where growth is solid and we have a growth rate of about 1.5 percent. And the growth rate is still a bit lower than before across countries and sectors. But there is still a big labour market slack that needs to be filled. But the key point is that we don't have a dual mandate like the Fed where we can look also at conditions of unemployment and labour market. We have a growth rate that is close but below 2 percent which should be reached in a self-sustained and durable fashion. And we are not there yet. And the governing council wants to get there. And there is nothing that will derail its will to get there. By the way, this anxiety should be also based on how far everybody benefited greatly from this monetary policy. All countries benefited greatly. So this angst so far has no evidence that could justify. Thank you, Jean-Philippe Blacourt from the Agence France Press. Two questions. Mr. President, one on the QE and the minutes of the last meeting, it was there was this interesting sentence saying that it was suggested that the stock versus flow effects of asset purchases be considered. Was this aspect discussed today even preliminary? And what does that mean when the level of the monetary policy stance is at stake? The first question, by that if you downscale the QE this stock and this flow effects will maybe have an importance. Maybe you can elaborate on this. The second question is on France. It is processing now a flagship reform on the Macron presidency which aims to liberalise the labour market. The effect will be to foster job creation but maybe a lot of jobs created will be precarious or maybe a low paid. So your opinion, a lot of people. So that will not trigger this reform efforts are maybe well it's important and good for any country in the Eurozone but that means maybe Macron will make with this reform the inflation case of ECB maybe much harder to achieve that it is already. What do you think? Well the first question we didn't have any discussion about the relative importance of stocks versus flows. On the second question we have full confidence that the French government knows exactly what to do to undertake the needed structural reforms and amongst the targets that all structural reforms of the labour market had now whether they achieved that or not is another issue but certainly the target one of the main targets was the elimination of dualism in the labour market because one lesson we learned from the crisis was that in all the jobs that have been created in some countries which had very rigid labour markets and so these jobs disappeared with the crisis and they were the first jobs to disappear. In the early 2000 some countries facing very rigid labour markets created or passed legislation which allowed the new entrants in the labour markets only if they were based on labour contracts which were very very flexible with respect to the ones that were already in the market they already employed and this way between 2000 and 2006 millions of jobs were created in some of these countries and by 2008 most of these jobs had gone simply the crisis destroyed all of them and by the way the flexibility that was introduced with these contracts fell disproportionately on the young sectors of the working population. So I think this has been well understood by everybody and I think all reforms of labour market should aim at decreasing or eliminating this dualism. Mr Schreuers? Thank you. My first question is on inflation beyond 2019. You will only publish a projection for 2020 in December but given the time leg of monetary policy and given that medium term in your definition of price stability does not necessarily mean two years. I guess you already had a discussion also of views today on how inflation will evolve after 2019 so what maybe you can give us a first insight what is your expectations for 2020 will it be higher than the 1.5% and the other one is the Fed is widely expected to make an announcement on the balance sheet reduction at its next meeting. How would this influence your decision on recalibration of monetary policy for example do you see a risk that if the Fed reduces balance sheets in 2018 and you try to recalibrate and maybe taper in some sense your QE program that there will be a sharp increase in the longer term yields. Thank you. Thank you. With respect to the second question really we don't, I mean we, our mandate is defined on the basis of our jurisdiction and so what other jurisdictions especially large jurisdictions do is certainly part of our information set but in a sense doesn't affect the monetary policy strategies other as a source of information. Also we have to see what this will imply for interest rates what this will imply for financing conditions in general and they if anything may be part of our information set that defines our monetary policy but so I would be sort of cautious about imagining that we coordinate our actions that we play strategic games in between us. My expectation of course in 2020 our inflation rate will converge to our objective but we didn't discuss it today. Thank you. Mr. Ewing? Jack Ewing, New York Times. I have two questions. The first is you mentioned that there was a discussion about whether the currency volatility is due to exogenous factors or internal factors. I wonder if you could maybe just give us a little flavor of that discussion if there was any consensus on how much is you know temporary geopolitical factors and how much might be sort of permanent Eurozone fundamentals. That's the first question. The second one is you said that most of the decisions will probably be taken in October. I'm paraphrasing you. That suggests that you have in your head a certain set of decisions that have to be made and I wonder if you can just give us a little bit of detail on what those decisions are. Thank you. Thank you. I mean answering your question based on the conversation we had I said that what was discussed was a set of different scenarios. We discussed the length of the program. We discussed the size of the program or better we discussed the trade-offs between different possibilities about length and size. And the pros and cons of different scenarios and the transmission channels of that. That is what we discussed today. Your other question was about the oh yes. Well we had a stuff projection here that basically revised downward inflation rate by some amount based on the downward, based on the appreciation of the Euro. Now when the shock of the when the exchange rate changes and the change is purely exogenous you have a pass through on inflation which is I think it was 0.5 percent something like I gave this number a time ago and it's actually published on a paper by the ECB. When the when the change in the exchange rate is not entirely due to exogenous factors the pass through on inflation is not entirely due to exogenous factors the pass through is lower. Now the sense of discussion we had is that there were different views about what is the intensity, how much is exogenous, how much is endogenous, how much is going to be persistent or not. But there was a general as I read in the introductory statement there was a general concern that the exchange rate represents a source of uncertainty which requires monitoring with regard to its possible implications of all the medium-term outlook of price stability. Also consider another factor to this that in judging the medium-term impact of a certain change in one of the financing conditions variables and the exchange rate is indeed one important one, one also takes into account the credibility of the exchange rate. And that is also a factor that plays a role and as I said before the governing council is firmly committed to this monetary policy. Thank you. And the final question for Ms. Thiers. Mr. Draghi, do you have any information on negative side effects of the quantitative easing program that you can tell us? The negative side effects of the quantitative easing program I don't have. It's not that I don't have any information. We don't see negative effects of this program. There we've discussed several times the potential side effects. They are vastly overwhelmed by the positive effects. So the answer is no. Of course the negative interest rates is a different thing. It's not the QE. And there are obviously side effects to the negative interest rates. We've discussed it many times. But again they are vastly upset by the continuing increasing evidence of the effectiveness that negative interest rates are having on the positive effects that negative interest rates are having on growth and therefore on the recovery and therefore on price stability in the medium term. Thank you very much.