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Our monetary policy statement at a glance - December 2021

What are the main points?

The euro area economy continues to recover but with a brief slowdown

The pandemic has led to renewed restrictions in some countries. Higher energy prices are slowing down the economy and will continue to do so in the near future.

Shortages in some sectors are holding back production

Bottlenecks and delays will be with us for some time. But they should ease during 2022. A solid labour market with many people in jobs should also help growth to pick up strongly again next year.

Inflation is still high but will come down in the course of 2022

For most of next year, inflation will remain above 2%. But the factors pushing up prices will become weaker.

What did we decide?

We can reduce the pace of our asset purchases step by step

We made changes to a number of our policy instruments. We will discontinue net purchases under our pandemic emergency purchase programme at the end of March 2022. Our policy has to stay supportive, flexible and keep options open to make sure inflation stabilises at our target of 2% over the medium term.

How do we see the economy developing?

We expect the economy to grow strongly in the years ahead

Projections for euro area economic growth for the coming years
(projections from December 2021)

We expect inflation to be high next year but to fall below our 2% target in the following years

Projections for euro area inflation for the coming years
(projections from December 2021)

SEE ALSO

Look at the details

MONETARY POLICY DECISIONS

Here is what the Governing Council decided about the ECB’s interest rates and instruments at its latest meeting.

Press release

MONETARY POLICY STATEMENT

Read our explanation of the reasons behind the latest monetary policy decisions.

Monetary policy statement
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What is monetary policy?