European Central Bank leaves interest rates unchanged amid Italy standoff
The European Central Bank has decided to leave interest rates unchanged at a monetary policy meeting in Frankfurt as expected.
The ECB's Governing Council said it expected interest rates to remain the same “at least through to the summer of 2019”.
It comes after the European Commission took the unprecedented step of rejecting Italy's draft budget, which proposes a deficit three times higher than the EU's mandated target.
The eurozone's central bank also said it would buy €15bn of bonds a month through to the end of December before bringing its net purchases as part of its asset purchase programme to an end.
It said: “At today’s meeting the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) decided that the interest rate on the main refinancing operations and the interest rates on the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility will remain unchanged at 0.00%, 0.25% and -0.40% respectively.”
The euro remained around 1.14 to the dollar following the announcement on Thursday.