Ladies and gentlemen, it is our pleasure to welcome you to this press conference. The Vice-President and I will now report on the outcome of today's meeting of the Governing Council of the ECB.


All in all, the information which has become available since the last meeting of the Governing Council means that our assessment of price stability over the medium term is unchanged. While short-term HICP inflation rates remain subject to certain volatilities, particularly in relation to oil prices, there is no significant evidence of underlying domestic inflationary pressures building up in the euro area. Accordingly, we have left the key ECB interest rates unchanged at their historically low levels. However, upside risks to price stability over the medium term remain. Continued vigilance is therefore of the essence with regard to those risks.