 Ladies and gentlemen, the 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, which was also attended by the Commission Vice President, Valdez Dombrovsky. 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 euro 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. Our monetary policy measures have continued to secure the very supportive financing conditions that are necessary to make continuous progress towards a sustained convergence of inflation rates to levels below but close to 2% over the medium term. The incoming information confirms a continued strengthening of the economic expansion in the euro area, which has been broadening across sectors and regions. The risk to growth outlook are broadly balanced. 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 into stronger inflation dynamics. Headline inflation is dampened by the weakness in energy prices. Moreover, measures of underlying inflation remain overall 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 programme in terms of size and or duration. 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 first quarter of 2017 after 0.5% in the last quarter of 2016. Incoming data, notably survey results, continue to point to solid broad-based growth in the period ahead. The pass-through of our monetary policy measures is supporting domestic demand and has facilitated the leveraging process. The recovery in investment continues to benefit from very favourable financing conditions and improvements in corporate profitability. Private consumption is supported by employment gains, which are also benefiting from past labour market reforms and by increasing household wealth. Moreover, the global recovery should increasingly lend support to trade and Euro area exports. However, economic growth prospects continue to be dampened by a slow pace of implementation of structural reforms, particularly in product markets and by remaining balance sheet adjustment needs in a number of sectors, notwithstanding ongoing improvements. The risks around in the Euro area growth outlook are broadly balanced. On the one hand, the current positive cyclical momentum increases the chances of a stronger than expected economic upswing. On the other hand, downside risks primarily relating to global factors continue to exist. Euro area annual HICP inflation was 1.3% in June, down slightly from 1.4% in May, mainly due to lower energy price inflation. Looking ahead on the basis of current futures price for oil, headline inflation is likely to remain around current levels in the coming months. At the same time, measures of underlying inflation remain low and have yet to show convincing signs of a pickup as domestic cost pressures, including wage growth, are still subdued. Underline inflation in the Euro area is expected to rise only gradually over the medium term. And by our monetary policy measures, the continuing economic expansion and the corresponding gradual absorption of economic slack. Turning to the monetary analysis, broad money M3 continues to expand at a robust pace with an annual rate of growth of 5% in May 2017 after 4.9% in April. 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 9.3% in May 2017 unchanged from April. 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 remained stable at 2.4% in May 2017, while the annual growth rate of loans to households increased to 2.6% from 2.4% in April. The Euro area bank lending survey for the second quarter of 2017 indicates that credit standards for loans to enterprises and loans to households for house purchase have further eased and that loan growth continues to be supported by increased demand. The pass-through of the monetary policy measures put in place since June 2014 continues to significantly support borrowing conditions for firms and households 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 the levels that are below but close to 2%. In order to reap the full benefits from our monetary policy measures, other policy areas must contribute decisively to strengthening the long-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 productivity growth. Regarding fiscal policies, old 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 pact and of the macroeconomic imbalances procedure over time and across countries remains essential to bolster the resilience of the Euro area economy. We are now at your disposal for questions. Mr. President, could you give us a bit of a flavor of the discussion at today's meeting? Mainly, have you held any formal talks about your strategy for the asset purchase program after the December this year? My second question is more on the follow-up from your Cintra speech. We've seen Euro strengthen on a trade-weighted basis to its highest level since end of 2014. You used to highlight your concerns about the impact this might have, a strength in currency for inflation. From that standpoint, are you concerned that the gains in the currency are already excessive? Thank you. Thank you. Let me respond first to your first question and give you a sense of the discussion we had today. Of course, we reviewed the economic developments in the Euro area, economic and financial developments in the Euro area, where we took stock of the continuing improvement in growth momentum. But also of the fact that the inflation rate is still subdued, and really there isn't any convincing sign of pickup for underlying inflation, while noting that the headline inflation will still be fairly volatile in the coming months. There was a general reiteration of the point that convergence of the inflation to our objectives remains conditional upon the very substantial monetary accommodation that is now in place. So all in all, one could try to sort of summarize the exchange, saying that it was around the concepts that we've expanded on on other occasions, like concepts of confidence that is basically generated by the growth momentum, but also by the fact that we need to be persistent and patient, because we aren't there yet and prudent. Now your second question, by the way, we also were, let me say, unanimous in communicating no change to the forward guidance, and also we were unanimous in setting no precise date for when to discuss changes in the future. In other words, we simply said that our discussions should take place in the fall or in the autumn since we are in Europe. Now concerning your second question, it's true that there have been movements in bond price, asset price, exchange rates, and so on. Let me go through this, but the conclusion is that the financing conditions remain broadly supportive to secure a sustained return of inflation rates towards our inflation aim. Now long-term yields have risen, but they still are low by historical standards. Core spreads have tightened, and some issuers have seen even falling rates. The corporate bond spreads have continued to decline. The 10-year GDP-weighted average of euro-era sovereign yields stands close to its level at the beginning of the year. Bank lending rates continue to be at very supportive levels, and the bank lending service suggests that banks expect a further net easing of their credit standards across all loan categories in the third quarter. The repricing of the exchange rate has received some attention during the various exchanges and in various ways, but that's been something that's been, just as I said, has received some attention. Andrew Merley of Il Sole 24 ore, as my colleague mentioned, there was a sharp reaction from financial markets to your Sintra speech. You must have looked at the Fed experience of 2013. Is there any concern in the governing council that the so-called tantrum or similar reaction can happen in the eurozone while you start discussing changes in your stance? Thank you. I won't comment, of course, on market reactions, but let me just give you the bottom line of our exchanges is that basically inflation is not where we want it to be and where it should be. Now, we are still confident that it will gradually get there, but isn't there yet. And that's why the governing council reiterated the forward guidance, the asset purchase program, the interest rates, and all this package of monetary accommodation and reiterated that it should, that the present very substantial monetary accommodation is still necessary. Let me read the introductory statement, 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. So let me just make clear one thing, that after a long time, we are finally experiencing a robust recovery where we only have to wait for wages and prices to follow course to our objective, to move towards our objective. Now the last thing that the governing council may want is actually an unwanted tightening of the financing conditions that either slows down this process or may even jeopardize it. And that's why we retained the second bias of let's call it reaction function. If the output becomes less favorable 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. And I think the governing council has given enough evidence that when flexibility is needed to achieve its objectives has been very able to find all that was needed to. So that's why we keep this bias. Thank you. Thank you. Claire Jones, Financial Times. Mr. Draghi, your remarks on inflation today seem to be rowing back a little on them. You said in my impression was that you seem quite confident that reflationary pressures were starting to reemerge and that the weakness in inflation would be temporary. Today you're saying that you see no sign of a pickup in headline inflation. So can you maybe just explain a little bit how we get to a point where we do see these reflationary pressures when you're saying there's no signs of it yet. And then for my second question, it seems from what you're saying today too that the exchange rate and also the jumping government borrowing costs is having some impact on your thinking of what you're going to do in 2018, but we've also seen from the reaction to your speech in Cintra and also to the taper tantrum in the US that it can be very difficult to control bond markets. How do you see the ECB being able to do this and would you consider doing something similar to the Bank of Japan where there is an attempt to manage the yield curve quite carefully and directly? Thank you. Thank you. Well, I reviewed the financial markets developments a moment ago and I think I put them in the proper context, but nothing like BioJS was discussed. Let me however comment on your parallel with Cintra's speech. Our assessment is that what I've just said and Cintra and Tallinn, because we have to go back to that in the Q&A and introductory statements, aren't very different. On all occasions, what we did was to basically take stock of the unquestionable improvement in the growth outlook in the Euro area. Then we asked ourselves the question, why isn't this showing up into a higher inflation rate, a headline and underlying inflation? And we went through a series of reasons that have to do with the labor market, have to do with backward-looking negotiations for wage negotiations, and other have to do with productivity. And in Cintra, this analysis was quite broad, quite detailed. And then we said, are these factors going to be permanent or temporary? We said, well, they're going to last some time, that's for sure. But probably they're not permanent because as the economic recovery improves and the growth outlook improves, all these reasons will lose some of their effect. In other words, for example, the labor market's lack may be bigger than previously estimated the, but as the economic situation and growth improves, so will the labor market and this will be absorbed, and so on for all these various reasons. We think, I mean, nobody can be 100% sure, but we think that it's going to take time, but in the end, although, as I said, nobody can be absolutely sure about that, but in the end these reasons will lose some of their effects. Then we said, are we there? And the answer was no, we aren't there yet. And that's why in Cintra, I used repeatedly the concept of together with confidence that in the end we'll get there, the concept of persistence or patience, persistence in keeping the current stimulus in place, stimulus upon which all the path of inflation is projected is conditional. So that is the sense that then we said, of course, our monetary policy will accompany the recovery, and that is, I think, because I believe it's all not only in Cintra, but also in Thailand, certainly today. And so all this says basically that the ECB, first of all, says that the governing council trusts the strength and the power of its monetary package in all its elements. Second, it says that the governing council is ready to use the flexibility that is needed to make true what its monetary policy package. And third, it says that the ECB will stay in the market for a long time. So in conclusion, I'm not sure I see big differences. Much was made of the word reflation. By the way, reflation means you have reflation when the price level recovers from, it's fallen below the trend line and it recovers. So it recovers from below the trend line. That's the technical definition of reflation. And so in the speech in Cintra and before, it says that reflation has replaced deflation or risks of deflation really better. So no big differences. And I have a general question of how confident are you that it's actually possible to withdraw that extraordinary stimulus without creating volatility at all? Are you confident that such a smooth sort of transition is actually possible? Second question would be on Greece. Greece is very hopeful to tap the markets, to go back to the markets, I should say, to sell debt. How confident are you that the ECB will also going to buy, will be buying government bonds from Greece going forward? Thank you. Thank you. Yes, we are confident that this process can be brought forward in a smooth way. And so we don't see, we see our program proceeding in a smooth fashion. As I said, the governing council has given enough evidence in the past that it can actually use all the flexibility that it's needed. On your second point, we've gone through this several times. First of all, the third review must be completed. The Greek government has decided to, as you said, to tap the market, and of course it's up to the government to decide about this. The sound implementation of the program and credibility are essential, however, for restoring market confidence. And we have to note that the National Central Bank has expressed some concern about that. So there has been serious progress in place in Greece all throughout the last several months. But issuance, the way we see this is that issuance activity should be part of an overall strategy where you have the completion of the third program and also the return to the market. But it should be in a lasting way. So it's premature to talk about other things and what you suggested or also other programs. Thank you. Mr. Jackeisch? Mr. Jackeisch, at the German television, Mr. President, please let me again touch on your interest speech and on the explanations you've given today. Would you say that there has been perhaps in parts of the economic and financial world kind of misinterpretation of what you have said in Cintra? And secondly, in the wake of this speech, but also before, in some parts of the markets, there have been demands that it perhaps would be wise and sensible that ECB would put forward a kind of roadmap, a kind of timetable concerning, of course, tapering, but also concerning possible changes in general monetary policy. Would you say that something like this would be helpful? Thank you. Thank you. Well, on the first question, I never, ever comment on market developments. On the second question, this is exactly what is going to be the substance of our discussion in the fall. So the answer is yes. Yes, the ECB considers useful, important, essential, and that's the sort of discussions we'll be having in the fall. Thank you. Mr Kanepa? Francesco Kanepa, Reuters. My first question is about technical work. Have you asked ECB staff to start looking into the technical options for QE beyond December, just at the technical level? The second question is slightly different. Five appointments inside the ECB were annulled over the past year, and now the appointment of your own advisor is being challenged in court. What do you intend to do to improve hiring practices in this situation? Well, the first question, the first answer is no. It's not being discussed. It's not being, they're not being tasked. The second answer is, well, I mean, really, in a sense, we are thankful to the staff committee and IBSO when they address mistakes that we, like everybody else, make. Sometimes their concerns are right, sometimes they're not. And so now we proceed in this way. Now, if sincerely wish to work, not only I, but also the board members and senior management wish to work with the staff committee and IBSO, the problem is that it's very difficult to have, you know, trust is a two-way route where it's very difficult to trust someone who discusses things on the press and news wires and so on, each and every time. And frankly, also for the staff, which is a staff of a world-class quality, to be seen in the press as being sort of continuously discussed must be a little sad. So I think that what should be improved, perhaps on both sides, is the way to work together. Not necessarily hiring practices, which, as I said, when they need correction, we correct them without hesitation. Thank you. Mr. Bondaman. Thank you. Mr. President, can I ask you? You also said in the central speech that as the economy continues to recover, a constant policy stance will become more accommodative. So it looks like the economy will continue to recover even more. You also said that the governing council will likely discuss changes in autumn. So do you view it as likely that a change in the monetary stance in autumn will be necessary? Thank you. You see, that's exactly why we have, why we are having this discussion in autumn and why we didn't want to set a precise date because we have to have all the available information at that point in time, which we'll certainly have by then. It's going to be a discussion which is made up of different parts. We don't look only at the growth recovery, of course, in assessing whether the monetary policy stance is appropriate or not. We also have to look at the, actually, first and foremost, we have to look at the path of inflation, whether it converges in a sustainable and self-sustained manner to our objective. And that's why I said before, if we are to experience in the presence of this recovery, of this growth recovery, if we are to experience an unwanted tightening of financing conditions that may jeopardize the convergence in the medium term of our inflation to our objectives, then we'll have to use to act and we'll have to use the inflation bias and other measures as well. That's why this discussion we're going to have in the fall is multifaceted. Thank you. Mr. Malin? Thank you, Jan Malin from Hannitsblatt. Mr. President, would it be possible that the ECB, for example, takes a general decision on a reduction of the bond purchases first and then maybe or quite early and then decides on the modalities of the purchases later? Would that be an option maybe? And my second question, you've said that there's no convincing sign of a pickup inflation yet. For example, a rate growth hasn't picked up yet. Have maybe the fundamentals also changed after the financial crisis, the relations between growth and wages and inflation? Or is the convincing sign only if wages really pick up? Thank you. The answer to the first question is we haven't discussed that. The second question is really asked whether something has changed following the financial crisis so that the response of wages to an improvement in the labor market is different from what it was in the past before the crisis. And the answer is yes, certainly. It has changed and there's a variety of factors why this has changed that I went through explicitly during my speech in Cintra, but as well in other occasions. And these are profound changes. Now, the key issues for us is are they going to be permanent or structural or in the end, we will go back to a sort of relationship between the labor market, between unemployment and wage growth like we used to have in the past. And the conclusion we draw, as I said, with great caution, however, because it's not something where one can be 100% sure. The conclusion we drew is that in the end, yes, we would go back to a relationship like we had before the crisis. Now, I focused on the labor market, but in fact, there are other reasons why this response may be delayed. For example, the leveraging process is another reason why this is lower than you would have in normal times. In general, after a protracted financial crisis and a long recession like we had, you would expect phenomena like hysteresis, phenomena like, as I said, backward-looking wage negotiations, like the deleveraging. So it's a variety of phenomena that some of them have to do with the labor market, others don't. But all throughout, we are confident, we are moving through. But it's a combination of confidence and prudence and patience. Thank you. Mr. Draghi, so you said you haven't tasked the committees yet to prepare options for an exit. So what are the chances that at your next policy meeting, you actually have concrete options on the table that you could discuss and take a decision on, or would you only task committees to prepare options after you had your initial discussions on a possible exit in the autumn? And my second question is you've highlighted the governing council's flexibility. What do you think are the chances at this point that you would have to change the parameters or the rules of the QE program again to ensure that there are sufficient assets to buy? Thank you very much. Thank you. I'm sorry, but the answer to the second question is we haven't discussed that. And to the first as well. We haven't discussed what we are going to do in view of September, and or even less so what we are going to do after September. That was a, as I said, it was a pretty unanimous conclusion. Exactly, don't set dates. We need to think. We need to have lots of information we don't have today. There is a lot of uncertainty around, so the governing council didn't want to be sort of forced to take decisions in absence of full information. Good afternoon. Harry Daniels from LiveSquawk News. Just a couple of questions really. Firstly, on the inflation picture at the moment, with all the QE we've already seen pumped through the system, is it time to look at the inflation target and the real underlying rate of inflation within the Eurozone? And secondly, with regards to capital keys and the fact that for the third month in a row now that Germany has fallen below that or the purchases for Germany have fallen below that, price and availability of credit on the corporate side, possibly more attractive for the programme, has this been discussed or considered? Can you repeat both questions? For the first one, the inflation picture, is it time to look at the inflation target? Has that been discussed? We've had all this QE pumped through the system, we've done all these extra accommodation and inflation isn't where it should be or where these people would like it to be. Is that because the target's wrong or it just, there is now because of what we've seen, it's going to take a lot longer to get there. And secondly, on the capital keys and really on the German element to this, would the council look at more corporate debts and purchases as say price and availability of credit possibly make this more attractive? Okay, the answer to the second question is that we haven't discussed that. We haven't discussed that but as I said it's just the, and we gave you enough evidence that that was the case all the times that when the governing council needed flexibility to carry through its monetary policy, it was successful in finding it. On the first point, we didn't actually discuss this, but not this time, but on other occasions we briefly touched upon. The issue is whether we should, basically the answer is first, the reasons that led all the central banks in the world to adopt the 2% objective or around that concept in the early 2000 are still valid. And specifically in the Euro area for the ECB are still valid. Second, it's true our monetary policy measures have been in place now for quite a long time, but they produced very significant effects. We can say that today we created, we created, were created in the last three years if I'm not mistaken, six million jobs, much more than any time before the crisis in the same amount of time. All the economic sentiment indicators, the survey indicators are either at all time high or close to that. So the policies have been unquestionably successful on the real side of the economy. And it's the response in terms of inflation, which we are still waiting for and looking and monitoring. And that's what, so the answer to that is we've got to be patient rather than changing the objective. Also if you kind of ask yourself how credible is anybody, really, an individual or an institution, then when it doesn't attain the objective, changes it and makes it attainable, changing the definition. So by the way, the whole reasoning could be done the other way around. So if we had inflation 4% and we want to bring it down, then we decided 4% is the new objective. So it's not very credible. Finally, I think that to discuss, even discuss, changing objectives at this point in time would be destabilizing for the expectations to be highly destabilizing. One question for Mr. Tarris. And then the final question for Mr. Yellen. Thank you. Mr. Draghi, what kind of new information would you need to see between now and the fall for you to convince the ECB that something needed to be adjusted in terms of the stimulus? Would you need to see an upward revision in inflation, for instance, or in the economic forecasts? Or would it be sufficient if growth just continued the way it's expected to do? My second question is, does September 7 count as the fall? Thanks. Sorry, my second question is? Count as the autumn. Well, if the governing council had decided to define autumn as September 7, they probably said September 7 is going to be when we'll decide. So it's going to be deliberately kept open. Your other question, what information? It isn't that we are looking for a specific data point which triggers one behavior or another. In September, we'll be having the macroeconomic projections. We'll be having stuff about the economic projections. So there is more information that we can look at between now and then. And so it's basically the sense of the governing council that it would have more confidence in taking a decision with more information than we have today. Jackie, you had New York Times. Mr. Draghi, you said during the opening statement that the recovery has been broadening across sectors and regions. I'm just wondering how it's obvious that there are still some trouble spots, still some areas that have high unemployment or credit is difficult to find. How much does that play into your thinking? How much, how broad does the recovery have to be before you're going to feel confident about perhaps removing some of the accommodation? And then a related question, how confident are you that some areas that have been benefiting from the accommodation can stand on their own once conditions go back to normal? Thank you. Thank you. Your question actually reminds all of us that what we say about growth momentum, strong recovery is an average. And in fact, as you said, there are spots which haven't seen such a great recovery. And they, in a sense, don't appear when we give this average aggregate description. That is something that should be always be kept in mind when we say that we created jobs and the labor market is improving. No question that it's true in the aggregate, but still that doesn't deny the presence of areas where slack remains significant and unemployment and youth unemployment especially remains significant. Now, having said that, we should always remember that our mandate is neither growth nor employment, but it's price stability. And that's where our monetary policy is geared for. And that's what we have to look at in terms of deciding whether we've actually moving successfully. I think that's my answer. Sorry, your second question was? Just whether you're worried that some areas that have benefited from accommodation might backslide or might prove unable to stand on their own when the accommodation is not there or not in the same volume. Again, in a sense, it goes beyond our remit. We have to take this into account in our minds, but our remit is the one of price stability. And that's what we have to look at. And we have to aim our policy action to that objective. Thank you very much. Thank you.