www.ecb.europa.eu
Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB,
Luis de Guindos, Vice-President of the ECB
Frankfurt am Main, 7 March 2024
Good afternoon, the Vice-President and I welcome you to our press conference.
The Governing Council today decided to keep the three key ECB interest rates unchanged. Since our last meeting in January, inflation has declined further. In the latest ECB staff projections, inflation has been revised down, in particular for 2024 which mainly reflects a lower contribution from energy prices. Staff now project inflation to average 2.3 per cent in 2024, 2.0 per cent in 2025 and 1.9 per cent in 2026. The projections for inflation excluding energy and food have also been revised down and average 2.6 per cent for 2024, 2.1 per cent for 2025 and 2.0 per cent for 2026. Although most measures of underlying inflation have eased further, domestic price pressures remain high, in part owing to strong growth in wages. Financing conditions are restrictive and our past interest rate…