European Central Bank

Synonyms: ECB

The European Central Bank (“ECB”) was established in 1999. Its role is to discuss and apply changes to monetary policy in Europe.

The ECB is a central bank and thus does not like unpredictable market activity. It will generally provide the market with a warning of impending policy changes via comments to the press.

The ECB’s major role is to foster price stability and sustainable growth, however, it also aims to maintain annual growth in consumer prices below 2%.

Meetings of the ECB occur extremely frequently, however major policy decisions are generally only made when there is also a press conference scheduled to announce the decisions – this happens 11 times per annum.

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