ECB in crisis mode

The Governing Council of the ECB decided today to lower the deposit facility rate by a further 25 basis points to 2.25%. Two factors are coming into focus for the next steps. First, the ECB is putting itself on ‘standby’ in order to arrive at the appropriate monetary policy assessment by increasing its monitoring. ‘Agility’ will enable it to respond quickly to changing data. The ECB is, so to speak, switching to 'crisis mode'. Against this backdrop, uncertainty about the outlook for the ECB's interest rate path has increased significantly. For the time being, we are sticking to our expectation of a further interest rate cut in June.