 Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Good night. 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 Mr. Dombrovskis. Based on our regular economic and monetary analysis, we today conducted a thorough assessment of the strength and persistence of the factors that are currently slowing the return of inflation to levels below but close to 2% in the medium term and reexamined the degree of monetary accommodation. As a result, the Governing Council took the following decisions in the pursuit of its price stability objective. First, as regards the key CB interest rates, we decided to lower the interest rate on the deposit facility by 10 basis points to minus 0.30%. The interest rate on the main refinancing operations and the rate on the marginal lending facility will remain unchanged at their current levels of 0.05% and 0.3% respectively. Second, as regards non-standard monetary policy measures, we decided to extend the asset purchase program. The monthly purchases of 60 billion euros under the asset purchase program are now intended to run until the end of March 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 aim of achieving inflation rates below but close to 2% over the medium term. Third, we decided to reinvest the principal payments on the securities purchased under the asset purchase program as they mature for as long as necessary. This will contribute both to favorable liquidity conditions and to an appropriate monetary policy stance. The technical details will be communicated in due time. Fourth, we decided to include in the public sector purchase program euro denominated marketable debt instruments issued by regional and local governments located in the euro area in the list of assets that are eligible for regular purchases by the respective national central banks. Fifth, we decided to continue conducting the main refinancing operations and the three month longer term refinancing operations as fixed rate tender procedures with full allotment for as long as necessary and at least until the end of the last reserve maintenance period of 2017. Today's decisions were taken in order to secure a return on inflation rates towards levels that are below but close to 2% and thereby to anchor medium term inflation expectations. The latest staff projections incorporate the favorable financial market developments following our last monetary policy meeting. They still indicate continued downside risk to the inflation outlook and slightly weaker inflation dynamics than previously expected. This follows downward revisions in earlier projections exercises. The persistence of low inflation rates reflects sizable economics lack weighing on domestic price pressures and headwinds from the external environment. Our new measures will ensure accommodative financial conditions and further strengthen the substantial easing impact of the measures taken since June 2014 which have had significant positive effects on financing conditions on credit and on the real economy. Today's decisions also reinforce the momentum of the Euro areas economic recovery and strengthen its resilience against recent global economic shocks. The governing council will closely monitor the evolution in the outlook of price stability and if warranted is willing and able to act by using all the instruments available within its mandate in order to maintain an appropriate degree of monetary accommodation. In particular the governing council recalls that the asset purchase program provides sufficient flexibility in terms of adjusting its price, composition and duration. Let me now explain our assessment in greater detail starting with the economic analysis. Euro area real GDP increased by 0.3% quarter on quarter in the third quarter of 2015 following a rise of 0.4% in the previous quarter most likely on account of a continued positive contribution to consumption alongside more muted developments in investment and exports. The most recent survey indicators point to an ongoing real GDP growth in the final quarter of the year. Looking ahead we expect the economic recovery to proceed. Domestic demand should be further supported by our monetary policy measures and their favourable impact on financial conditions as well as by the earlier progress made with fiscal consolidation and structural reforms. Moreover low oil prices should provide support for households real disposable income and corporate profitability and therefore private consumption and investment. In addition, government expenditure is likely to increase in some parts of the Euro area reflecting measures of support of refugees. However the economic recovery in the Euro area continues to be dampened by subdued growth prospects in emerging markets and moderate global trade the necessary balance sheet adjustments in a number of sectors and by this laggy space of implementation of structural reforms. This outlook is broadly reflected in the December 2015 Euro system staff macroeconomic projections for the Euro area which foresee annual real GDP increasing by 1.5% in 2015 1.7% in 2016 1.9% in 2017. Compared with September 2015 ECB staff macroeconomic projections the prospects for real GDP growth are broadly unchanged. The risks to the Euro area growth outlook relate in particular to the heightened uncertainties regarding developments in the global economy as well as to broader geopolitical risks. These risks have the potential to weigh on global growth and foreign demand for Euro area exports and on confidence more widely. According to Euro stats flash estimate Euro area annual HICP inflation was 0.1% in November 2015 unchanged from October but lower than expected. This reflected somewhat weaker price increases in services and industrial goods mainly compensated by a less negative contribution from energy prices. On the basis of the information available in current oil futures prices annual HICP inflation rates are expected to rise at the turn of the year mainly on account of base effects associated with the falling oil prices in late 2014. During 2016 and 2017 inflation rates are foreseen to pick up further supported by our previous monetary policy measures and supplemented by those announced today by the expected economic recovery and by the pass through of past declines in the Euro exchange rate. The governing council will closely monitor the evolution of inflation rates over the period ahead. This broad pattern is also reflected in the December 2015 Euro system staff macroeconomic projections for the Euro area which foresee annual HICP inflation at 0.1% in 2015 1% in 2016 and 1.6% in 2017. In comparison with the September 2015 macroeconomic projections the outlook for HICP inflation has been revised down slightly. Turning to the monetary analysis recent data confirms solid growth in broad money with the annual rate of growth of M3 increasing to 5.3% in October 2015 from 4.9% in September. Annual growth in M3 continues to be mainly supported by its most liquid components with a narrow monetary aggregate M1 growing at an annual rate of 11.8% in October after 11.7% in September. Loan dynamics continued the path of gradual recovery observed since the beginning of 2014. The annual rate of change of loans to non-financial corporations increased to 0.6% in October up from 0.1% in September. Despite these improvements developments in loans to enterprises continue to reflect the lagged relationship with the business cycle credit risk and the ongoing adjustment of financial and non-financial sector balance sheets. The annual growth rate of loans to households increased to 1.2% in October compared with 1.1% in September. Overall the monetary policy measures in place since June 2014 have clearly improved borrowing conditions for both firms and households and credit flows across the Euro area. To sum up the lack of the outcome of the economic analysis with the signals coming from the monetary analysis confirmed the need for further monetary stimulus in order to secure a return of inflation rates towards levels that are below but close to 2%. Monetary policy is focused on maintaining price stability over the medium term and its accommodative stance on economic activity. However, in order to reap the full benefits of our monetary policy measures other policy areas must contribute decisively. Given continued high structural unemployment and low potential output growth in the Euro area the ongoing cyclical recovery should be supported by effective structural policies in particular actions such as this environment including the provision of inadequate public infrastructure are vital to increase productive investment boost job creation and raise productivity. The swift and effective implementation of structural reforms in an environment of accommodative monetary policy will not only lead to higher sustainable economic growth in the Euro area but will also raise expectations of permanently higher income and accelerate the beneficial effects of reforms thereby making the Euro area more resilient to global shocks. Physical policies should support the economic recovery while remaining in compliance with the fiscal rules of the European Union. Full and consistent implementation of the stability and growth pact is crucial for confidence in our fiscal framework. At the same time all countries should strive for a more growth friendly fiscal consolidation for a more growth friendly composition of fiscal policies. We are now at your disposal for questions. Thank you. Please have a microphone in the front row. Brian Blackstone with Wall Street Journal with your deposit rate cut today are you at the lower bound or is there more room to cut that rate? And my second question is it seems like what you've done is a little bit on the low end of the range of what the financial markets had expected in terms of your stimulus package today. It seems like the initial reaction in the financial markets bears this point. Why didn't you do more given how much you've warned about the risks of low inflation? Why didn't you raise the monthly purchase amount? Why didn't you cut the deposit rate more? Thank you. Thank you. Well, let me tell you how we came to take the decisions we've taken. In the last governing council we decided to assess whether the degree of monetary accommodation that we had achieved until then was adequate or needed to be recalibrated. And this exercise basically showed three conclusions. The first is that we are witnessing a continuing recovery gradual but continuing recovery driven mostly, as I said a minute ago, by consumption. The growth rates in this year have been 0.4, 0.4 and 0.3% over the last three quarters. The drivers to this recovery are first are commodity monetary policy, second less fiscal headwinds to our fiscal policy, and third very importantly is the oil prices of course, which are supporting real disposable income. But also our policies have been effective also on the inflation front because if you observe, especially in the last month we've observed that for one, I wouldn't say the first time but certainly after a long time, the correlation between our inflation expectations measures and the current inflation of the oil prices has decreased or has just disappeared. So overall the conclusion about our policies was that they've been effective. Let me also, well I can dwell on that later to show, to give you a few figures of how effective these policies have been in improving the credit conditions in improving the financial markets conditions and in supporting what we have seen so far happening in the real economy. The question then was have they been effective enough for us to be confident that we would reach our objectives about inflation within the horizon that we have planned and the answer we gave ourselves was not enough so we have to do more. So let me say this very clearly we are doing more because it works not because it fails we want to consolidate something that's been a success and why did we come to this conclusion? Well we said that the last macroeconomic projections implied that downward revisions in inflation vary small but they're still there now this downward revision comes after a long series of downward revisions in inflation. Also the projections contained the effect of our policy communications in the last month already and in spite of that they had a downward revision. Also after the cut of date we had another data on inflation which was likely lower than expected. So for a variety of reasons we decided that our monetary policy accommodation needed to be recalibrated so as to have a faster convergence of our inflation objective to our 2017 horizon. Now what did we do? Well we took several decisions that I've just illustrated but one of them comes pretty new, namely the reinvestment of principal payments of principal payments. Now that is a quite important measure because it basically says that we intend to maintain the degree of monetary accommodation and favorable conditions for the liquidity longer, for longer horizon than we had been saying so far. Which means that the conditions of a quite abundant liquidity and high excess liquidity will continue for a long, long time. And we shouldn't discount another fact that we have not been discussing so far that there are a series of what we call autonomous factors coming into play in the years ahead which tend to reduce the excess liquidity. And so there are several of these. One is the repayment of the Teltro. Another one is the repayment for banknotes. Another one is the bonds purchased under the S&P program that may come due. So we counteract this reduction and we actually may do even more than offset these reductions. Which means that the conditions for this liquidity will ensure that the bonds we purchased and we are purchasing and will be purchasing will stay on our balance sheet for a long time. So I think these are very significant decisions. We contribute we we are confident that these decisions actually are adequate to achieve our objectives. Well, I said we decided this cut in the deposit rate, we think it's adequate. Mr. Rieg. Johanna Rieg, Market News. You've just explained your reasoning but nevertheless as Brian pointed out financial markets appear to be disappointed. So what is the reason there? Do you think that something went wrong in your communication in the run up to the decision? Did you perhaps overestimate your ability to convince fellow policy makers to decide something even more aggressive? Or do financial markets not understand yet how powerful these measures actually are? No, I think I'm sorry. Excuse me. The second question could you perhaps give us an idea about the discussion on the governing council and whether the decision today was or all the five decisions were unanimous. Thank you. No, they were not unanimous but it was a very large majority in favor of this package. Very large. On the first, no, I don't think so. I don't think our communication was wrong. I think these measures need time to be fully appreciated and we'll see. Mr. Speziale. Thank you. Mr. President you have said many times and today too that QE is working better than expected. At the same time you have also said that inflation is getting back to where you want it to be slower than you thought. So how do these two things square up? Is this because the euro economy works differently than you thought? And my second question is at Alte Oper here in Frankfurt last month you said that you want to bring inflation back to close to 2% in just under 2%. Is this... Can this be read as a sign that you would tolerate some overshoot to avoid the risks of too low inflation for too long? Thank you very much. Now the answer to the second question is that our inflation rate ought to go close to 2% but below 2% over the medium term and one should certainly take into account that it was well below 2% for a long time. On the second point we do say and we just said that our QE has been quite effective. Let me give you a few figures. The market-based financing conditions showed a fairly significant success of our policies. Euro era 10-year government-born yields fell by around 20, 120 basis points between June 2014 and now. We have the same decline in yields on bonds issued by firms, by banks and basically the declines that cuts in the deposit-facility rate have enhanced the power of our transmission channels. But the most important thing is the fall in the cost of credit. The cost of credit for the Euro area for the whole of the Euro area bank lending rates fell by approximately 80 basis points. Just think about that to achieve that under normal circumstances one needs a reduction in interest rates by 100 basis points and the transmission channel of this reduction to lower lending rates has been faster. For so-called vulnerable member states such reduction was to up 140 basis points so credit has become much cheaper. Credit volumes have become much broader and more significant for both households and firms all across the Euro area. Spreads have been going down for between large borrowers and small borrowers and between borrowers in the vulnerable countries or in end in the known vulnerable countries. So all in all all these measures have had an effect on the economy. So let me give you a figure produced by our staff in absence of our measures inflation would be at least half a percentage point lower next year and about a third of a percentage point lower in 2017. But also the impact on GDP is very sizable. Our measures are contributing to raise GDP by almost 1% in the years 2015 2017. So I think we rightly claim that our policies have been effective. Because we calibrated at the beginning in January 2015 we calibrated QE on the basis of certain conditions. And these conditions have changed through 2015 and in particular during the summertime because of changes in the external factors the weakening of emerging market economies the appreciation of the exchange rate and so on all this produced lower inflation. So we had to recalibrate and we are going to do this on and on as the external conditions to risk the achievement of our objectives. Miss Chathadi? Julia Chathalie, CNBC International I think some of the disappointment that we're seeing in the market can be tied to the lack of movement on the size of monthly purchases. Can I just ask you if you did talk about increasing that size and whether somewhere in there we can tie the decision not to to the prospect of diminishing returns given how low sovereign bond yields already are and you did talk about the deposit rate. You said it was adequate at this moment but can I ask again are we at the lower bound for the deposit rate please? We have a menu of options fortunately our monetary policy has many tools. Our asset purchase program is flexible we can always adjust its horizon its size its design and we are not going to be I would say hampered in doing this by technical issues as a matter of fact we are going to revisit or review some of the technical parameters of our program in the spring. This time we decided that the extension of the horizon and especially the introduction of the reinvestment would be the right thing to do and the new calibration was achieved after that would tell that we would be able we are confident to reach our objectives within the horizon as we planned which means basically we are not excluding the use of all other instruments if we were to decide that they were the right ones to do. I said before that the count we decided today is adequate period. Clare Jones Financial Times you've noted on many occasions that QE has had quite a big impact on lending conditions on credit markets yet we've seen very little change in core inflation since January is that what you would have expected when you first announced QE and if not why do you think it's happened and why will what you've announced today address this well seem in contrast between the impact of QE on credit markets and on the real economy? Well there are many, many factors that affected the core inflation projections as we had it since January 2015 the most important ones I've just mentioned is the oil prices and the situation in the emerging market economies what we've done since then is to create a very favorable financial condition and credit markets condition so that firms and households even though burdened by these external factors could find credit easier to access and more abundant and we've seen this especially mainly through higher consumption and higher real disposable income and the interesting thing to see is that for now for the first time this year the recovery is becoming broader and is actually driven mostly by consumption rather than exports and the other interesting thing to see is that consumption and real disposable income move together namely the savings rate is flat which is also a good sign so we see that gradually our QE is translating itself into improvement, into improving economic conditions in the euro area Ms. Abbasald? Yes, Abbasald, no, you're too much at Zeitung at the last meeting you told us that expert groups were analyzing the functioning of APP to tell us something on the outcome so especially what channel worked best so the portfolio rebalancing or expectation? Yes, the measures that the governing council decided today had been discussed quite in a quite detailed fashion by all the relevant committees and basically our decisions do reflect their discussions and we analysed different responding to the question that was asked before why have we chosen to widen the horizon why have we chosen to introduce this reinvestment factor also this was analysed by the committees and that we basically followed their views in taking these decisions Mr. O'Donnell? Could you quantify the impact of your purchases in the municipal bond market just how big this market really is for the ECB and in the future there are many other securities which are potentially there to be bought could you perhaps shed some light on other potential areas where the asset purchase program could be extended to for example in the area of non-performing loans there would be the possibility of extending asset-backed security purchases to instruments that would include at least some element of non-performing bonds in the future perhaps I would say first it's too early to say what's the extent of our purchases in the original bonds that I've just stated in the introductory statement it's too early to say but it's also too early to say in which direction we're going to extend if we'll ever need to extend because so far we don't have to we have the overall situation it's been said several times that we wouldn't be able to buy the bonds and in fact bonds are there to be bought in good supply so it's just too early to project further extensions it would be also premature Mr. Malin Dave McQAP I'll take Mr. Malin afterwards sorry Mr. Draghi my first question is Jan Malin from Handelsblatt my first question is on the deposit rate what is the main intention behind this lowering the experience seems to be quite mixed in countries like Switzerland is it supposed to push down the exchange rate of the euro and that my second question is on the unfi agreement between ECB and national central banks some national central banks seem to have bought quite large amounts of assets during the past years while others have not is that a cause for concern for you well on the second question look, unfi purchases are entirely a matter for national central banks they decide their investment policy in complete independence often it's very hard to understand what what are the purposes why they buy certain bonds often for example very often is for their pension funds I would exclude completely you didn't say that but you may have said that you may have thought about this in your mind I would exclude completely any possibility of monetary financing they are not buying from the primary market and their investment policies are pretty broad based so it's a question that I think you as far as you should ask them on the first point we simply observed that cuts in the rate on the deposit facility vastly improves the transmission of our monetary policy vastly improves the transmission of our monetary policy for example some of you ask or is about to ask why we left the MRO unchanged mainly because all the short term interest rates now follow the rate on the deposit facility which has become really the driver of our monetary policy and then this will have consequences positive consequences on the real economy thank you Mr. McHugh the level of ECB accommodation the level of ECB accommodation you or so has put some pressure on the central banks in other countries Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden just wondering the extent to which ECB considers the plight of its neighbors when it's doing monetary policy and what if any communicates to them more this is a very important question that we ask ourselves all the times not only with respect to other countries here in Europe but also with respect to the monetary policy and the central banks of emerging markets and we really have to think and to reflect that we are bound by our mandates our mandates are national mandates are based on our own national jurisdictions this holds for the ECB holds for the Fed, holds for the Bank of England and holds for central banks but would this mean that we don't talk to our colleagues no, certainly not and with the so there is a fairly extensive I would say habit of consultation of discussion of explanation more than consultation of explanation of the reasons why we do certain things and we have what we call the spillovers and the effects of these spillovers in mind certainly but as I said we are bound by our mandates Mr. Lacour Thank you Jean-Philippe Lacour Mr. President by increasing the asset purchases until 2017 we must have in mind that then the balance sheet of the ECB could reach roughly 40% of the global eurozone in GDP is it a level or is it not a burden that at one level could be too heavy to bear and that could play a role in the discussion when you decide to extend or not the amount of this program and secondly can you explain us the rationale behind this answer you gave today to the ombudsmen of the European Parliament a quiet period for all governments one week before a meeting like today thank you Thank you On the first point is the balance sheet of a central bank is an instrument as such it should be used to reach the objective which is price stability as we have defined here so there isn't a size that is better than another size the only gorge to this is to reach the objective of price stability but I would say the other part of your question is if need be would we be able to sort of drain this liquidity in do we have the instruments the answer is yes we have the instruments we have the instruments on the other question about the now the it's not the ombudsman of the European Parliament there is an ombudsman and then there is a question by the European Parliament so we have updated our guiding principles for external communications to clarify and amplify what is already discussed during the quiet period there will be no discussion of monetary policy with representatives from financial institutions so the exact text which was updated on the 3rd of December now reads the members of the executive board reaffirm their adherence to the quiet period principle whereby speeches and public remarks in the 7 days prior to each scheduled monetary policy meeting of the governing council should not be such as to influence expectations about forthcoming monetary policy decisions similarly the members of the executive board will not meet nor talk to the media market participants or outside interests of monetary policy matters during that period so we greatly appreciate the constructive dialogue we had with the ombudsman on all aspects of transparency which we value highly and by the way we just received a letter from the ombudsman a highly congratulatory letter so Mr. Conti Domenico Conti of ANSA news agency Mr. Draghi said that the public asset purchase program would go on until March 2017 or further if necessary now how close is this commitment to basically open-ended asset purchases how close is this commitment this statement to actually doing open-ended asset purchases as long as necessary means that this group go on and on right not really no there is a date but it's also a condition and the condition is and it's part and parcel of our foreign guidance is that until we see a sustained convergence towards our objective of a rate of inflation which is below but close to 2% so we give a date and then we say if that is not enough we can continue and we said with today we are going to reinvest the goals of the bonds that we purchased it's quite important to understand that this reinvestment may start before March 2017 but will certainly continue after March 2017 so the bonds will stay on our balance sheet after March 2017 Mr. Perez this is Claudio Perez from El País Spain, last year in Jackson Hole you advocated for a policy mix with monetary policy reforms, investment and fiscal policy and today you have emphasised the role of fiscal policy do you miss more stimulus in countries more stimulus, fiscal stimulus in countries with margin like Germany for example and do you consider that the neutral fiscal stance that the European Commission is advocating for the Eurozone as a whole is adequate now in a sort of liquidity trap at this point in time by the way we had a brief exchange on this issue and our conclusion now is that first of all the answer should be given by the Commission the second point is that we will continue reflecting on this and we will have a view on whether what is the degree of appropriateness of the fiscal stance whether we have a view about the aggregate fiscal stance what is the degree of compliance with existing rules whether the flexibility which has been exercised before all the terrible happenings of this year so before the recent terrorist attacks but also before the refugees act the refugees events whether that flexibility would be justified so there are lots of factors that are playing all together how do we assess the fiscal stance today in presence of the previous flexibility the refugees the need for security of the Euro area it's a very complicated question so we are going to reflect on that Mr Draghi I would like to come back to the issue of the securities purchases by national central banks you just mentioned I mean there have been some calculations been published in a German Sunday newspaper that the Italian central bank bought up to 100 billion and the also had a similar volume of securities purchased under the ANFA and you mentioned yourself it's very hard to understand these purchases how can you be so sure that they are not bordering to a money financing of the states if they are so hard to understand and my second question why don't you publish these documents of the ANFA to make it more clear to every observer what they are about as I said you should ask them that's the answer but I can exclude completely any monetary financing that's for sure because they would be so there's no monetary financing in these purchases other than that the national central banks decide their investment policies based on their needs and it's their competence and their autonomy if you some of them communicate by the way some others don't you have central banks that don't tell anything about ANFA so you wouldn't be able to know how many bonds they've purchased so the question that you may have about ANFA should be asked to the national central banks and when I said it's very hard to understand I'm sorry I don't want to be misunderstood it's very hard to understand what is the investment policy of the national central banks because each one of them has an investment policy it's not that we are trying actually we have a say in their investment policy we don't have a say in their pension funds for example thank you I have two questions on grace is the conclusion of the first review the only precondition for the reinstatement of the waiver and the inclusion of grace in the QE and how easy could be to close the first review since the pension reform is already raising fears for political instability do you share those fears? My second question some politicians in Greece say that the share holdings of the greek state and the pension funds in greek banks have become worthless because of the capitalization method imposed by institutions what is your view thank you very much well on the pension issues really this is an issue for the institutions to discuss with the government as part of the review in January and I have nothing else to add on the recapitalization of the banks let me just I'll give the floor to the vice president so let me just say that all those decisions have been decisions by the banks themselves and the government to some extent please be to her thank you on this there are of course investments public investments in the banks they have been done for instance in the previous round of recapitalizations with the shares with limited voting rights but with full economic rights meaning the same rights to dividends as any other so there is in that respect not a problem of valuation of those public shares they participate of course in the economic results of the banks but they are limited in terms of their voting powers and this time as you have seen in the case of two banks they were able to fill shortfalls with private investors money and there are other two that were not able to do so they were able to do so in what regards the shortfall for the baseline stress test and asset quality review but not for the adverse scenario and for that they will require some money which will be public money which may be invested into the banks in a proportion of 70% to 30% 70% in cocos and 30% in shares which of course will benefit from any profits or dividends that the banks will get in the future so that's the situation so the statement that those public investments are worthless is not correct regarding the policy that we have regarding the two things so in what regards the waiver the main condition is that the governing council will be satisfied that the government will be satisfied that the government will be satisfied that the country under a program is complying with the program and that could even happen before the conclusion of the review if we would be close enough to that end of the review and we would be convinced that the review would become successful so it's not a date it's an assessment of the compliance with the program regarding the participation in QE it's more complex and it does not depend only on the successful completion of the review Mr. Akagawa Mr. Akagawa, Japanese Nike you said a large majority of the members of us have the new measures did you discuss this time the side effects or risks of the additional measures in the governing council if yes, what kind of and how can you avoid those risks is there also discussed in the governance council thank you No, this time I wouldn't say that we've discussed side effects it's a discussion that we have ongoing anyway we are closely monitoring these risks we are aware that these risks may be there so that's why first of all try to know and learn as much as one can about these risks all the times second, do we have evidence about these side effects no, so far we don't have evidence especially the growth in credit accompanied by leverage by leverage the phenomenon that we've seen pre-crisis we don't see that as I've given I've just given to you figures about credit credit is picking up, it's coming back but it's very very subdued yet and we don't see especially systemic risk we may have localized risks in different parts of the financial system and they should be addressed by macro prudential policy measures not certainly not by changes in monetary policy thank you Mr. Merli Alessandro Merli of Il Sole 24 you've alluded to the recent terrorist attacks I wonder if the possible effect if there are any of the terrorist attacks the economy were already included in your macroeconomic projection or what is your assessment of that my answer to this frank answer is we don't know we certainly have in mind that the situation ahead is full of geopolitical risks and that's why we have to be alert that's why we have to be certainly continuing our effort to pursue and achieve the price stability objective well aware that the surrounding conditions may actually get worse because of these geopolitical risks so there is I should say that in the present measures the measures we've decided today there is confidence but there is no complacency the last question to Mr. Ewing please Jack Ewing, New York Times one of the side effects I think it's very clear from your measures has been that the euro has lost value against the dollar it's getting could get close to parity pretty soon I know that the currency rate is not a policy goal but it does seem to have been effect and my question is is there a point when the euro gets so low against the dollar that the negative effects start to become a concern is there a point when the euro would lose so much value that you would start to worry about it thank you thank you and I've said this that for us the exchange rate is not a policy target but of course it's important for price stability and for growth so when we decide our monetary policy measures we have in mind as objectives the inflation the path to our objective at the same time it's quite clear that whatever we do and whatever everybody does in the world every central bank does in the world affects the exchange rate and this in turn will have effects on price stability and growth so it's very difficult to respond to your question whether we have in mind a level of the exchange rate we have in mind only our objectives of inflation and to the second extent growth thank you very much