ECB officials back stimulus policy to arrest slowdown

Bloomberg

Euro-area officials set out to defend their latest monetary-policy action, stressing their package of new long-term loans and revised guidance was an appropriate response to the region’s economic slowdown.
“Hard data indicated that a reaction was needed,” Lithuanian Governing Council member Vitas Vasiliauskas told reporters in Vilnius. “It was a natural preemptive move.”
Recent data have painted a gloomy picture of the euro area’s state of economic affairs, raising concern that the 19-nation bloc would be flirting with recession before long. The European Central Bank responded to sharp downward revisions to its 2019 projections for growth and inflation by announcing a fresh series of long-term bank funding and promising to keep interest at their current rock-bottom levels for longer.
The ECB wanted to show it could react without over-reacting, French Governing Council member Francois Villeroy de Galhau told BFM Business radio, adding that the euro area is facing a significant slowdown but not a recession — an assessment shared by his Austrian colleague Ewald Nowotny.