[Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] w [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] good afternoon and Welcome to our press conference we here uh with ECB president like and vice president the gindos my name is wolfang prel we are also connected to some journalists uh via video conferencing so i' would like to ask them if they ask a question to put on their cameras and the microphones and with that I would like to hand over to president lagard please thank you very much and uh good day to all of you today the vice president and I are delighted delighted to welcome you to our press conference the governing Council today decided to lower the three key ECB interest rates by 25 basis points based on our updated assessment of the inflation Outlook the Dynamics of underlying inflation and the strength of monetary policy transmission it is now appropriate to moderate the degree of monetary policy restriction after nine months of holding rates steady since our meeting in September 23 inflation has fallen by more than 2.5 percentage points and the inflation Outlook has improved markedly underlying inflation has also eased reinforcing the signs that price pressures have weakened and inflation expectations have declined at all Horizons monetary policy has kept financing conditions restrictive by dumpen demand and keeping inflation expectations well anchored this has made a major contribution to Bringing inflation back down at the same time despite the progress over recent quarters domestic price pressures remain strong as wage growth is elevated and inflation is likely to stay above Target well into next year the latest eurosystem staff projections for both headline and core inflation has been revised up for 2024 and 2025 compared with the March projections staff now see headline inflation averaging 2.5% in 24 2.2% in 25 and 1.9% in 26 for inflation excluding energy and food staff project an average of 2.8% in 24 2.2% in 25 and 2% in 26 economic growth is expected to pick up to 0.9% in 2024 1.4% in 2025 and 1.6% in 2026 we are determined to ensure that inflation returns to our 2% medium-term Target in a timely manner we will keep policy rates sufficiently restrictive for as long as necessary to achieve this aim we will continue to follow a data dependent and meeting by meeting approach to determining the appropriate level and duration of restriction in particular our interest rate decision will be based on our our assessment of the inflation Outlook in light of the incoming economic and financial data the Dynamics of underlying inflation and the strength of monetary policy transmission we are not pre-commit to a particular rate path the governing Council today also confirmed that it will reduce the Euro systems holdings of Securities under the pandemic emergency purchase program by 7. 5 billion per month on average over the second half of the year the modalities for reducing the pep Holdings will be broadly in line with those followed under the asset purchase program the decisions taken today are set out in a press release available on our website and I will now outline in more detail how we see the economy and inflation developing and will then explain our assessment of Financial and monetary conditions so looking at the economic activity after five quarters of stagnation the Euro area economy grew by 0.3% over the first quarter of 24 the services sector is expanding and Manufacturing is showing signs of stabilization at low levels we expect the economy to continue to recover as higher we wages and improved terms of trade push up real incomes stronger exports should also support growth over the coming quarters AS Global demand for goods and services Rises finally monetary policy should exert less of a drug on demand over time employment Rose by 0.3% in the first quarter of this year with around 500,000 new jobs created and surveys point to continued job growth in the near term the unemployment rate edged down to 6.4% in April it's lowest level since the start of the Euro companies are still posting many job vacancies though slightly fewer than before National fiscal and stru structural policies should aim at making the economy more productive and competitive which would help to raise potential growth and reduce price pressures in the medium term an effective speedy and full implementation of the Next Generation EU program progress towards Capital Market unions and the completion of banking Union and a strengthening of the single Market would help Foster Innovation and increase investment in the green and digital transitions implementing the eu's revised economic governance framework fully and without delay will help governments bring down budget deficits and debt ratios on a sustained basis looking at inflation now annual inflation Rose to 2.6% in May from 2.4% in April according to eurostat's flash estimate food price inflation declined to 2.6% energy price inflation increased to 02 0 3% after recording negative annual rates for a year Goods price inflation continued to decrease in May to 0.88% by contrast Services price inflation Rose markedly to 4.1% from 3.7% in April most measures of underlying inflation declined further in April the last month of for which data are available confirming the picture of gradually diminishing price pressures however domestic inflation remains High wages are still rising at an elevated Pace making up for the past inflation surge owing to the staggered nature of the wage adjustment process and the important role of one-off payments labor costs will likely fluctuate over the near term as seen in the pickup in negotiated wages in the first quarter at the same time forward-looking indicators signal that wage growth will moderate over the course of the Year profits are absorbing part of the pronounced rise in unit labor costs which reduces its inflationary effects inflation is expected to fluctuate around current levels for the rest of the year including due to energy related base effects and it is then expected to decline towards our Target over the second half of next year owing to weaker growth in labor cost the unfolding effects of our restrictive monetary policy and the fading impact of the energy crisis and the pandemic measures of longer term inflation expectations have remained broadly stable with most standing at around 2% turning now to our risk assessment the risks to economic growth are balanced in the near term but remain tilted to the downside over the medium term a weaker World economy or an escalation in trade tensions between major economies would weigh on Euro area growth Russia's unjustified war against Ukraine and the tragic conflict in the Middle East are major sources of geopolitical risk this may result in firms and households becoming less confident about the future and global trade being disrupted growth could also be lower if the effects of monetary policy turn out stronger than expected growth could be higher if inflation comes down more that quickly than expected and Rising confidence and real incomes mean that spending increases by more than anticipated or if the world economy grows more strongly than expected inflation could turn out higher than anticipated if wages or profits increase by more than expected upside risks to inflation also stem from the heightened geopolitical tensions which could push Energy prices and freight costs higher in the near term and disrupt global trade trade moreover extreme weather events and the unfolding climate crisis more broadly could drive up food prices by contrast inflation may surprise on the downside if monetary policy dampens demand more than expected or if the economic environment in the rest of the world worsens unexpectedly so our f financial and monetary conditions review Market interest rates have risen since our April meeting financing costs have plateaued at restricted levels as our past policy rate increases have worked their way through the financial system the average interest rates on new loans to firms and on new mortgages were unchanged in April at 5.2% and 3.8% respective ly credit Dynamics remain weak Bank lending to firms grew at an annual rate of 0.3% in April down slightly from the previous month loans to households continued to grow at 0.2% on an annual basis the annual growth in Broad money as measured by M3 Rose to 1.3% in April from 0 .9% in March in line with our monetary policy strategy the governing Council thoroughly assessed the links between monetary policy and financial stability Euro area Banks remain resilient the improving economic Outlook has fostered Financial stability but heightened geopolitical risks Cloud The Horizon an unexpected tightening of global financing conditions could prompt a repricing of Financial and non-financial assets with negative effects on the wider economy macroprudential policy Remains the first line of defense against the buildup of financial vulnerabilities the measures that are currently in place or will soon take effect are helping to keep the financial system resilient in conclusion the governing Council today decided to lower the three key ECB interest rates by 25 basis points we are determined to ensure that inflation returns to our 2% medium-term Target in a timely manner we will keep policy rates sufficiently restrictive for as long as necessary to achieve that aim we will continue to follow a data dependent and meeting by meeting approach to determining the appropriate level and duration of restriction in particular our interest rate decisions will be based on our assessment of the inflation Outlook in light of the incoming economic and financial data the Dynamics of underlying inflation and the strength of monetary policy transmission we are not pre-commit to a particular rate path in any case we stand ready to adjust all of our instruments within our mandate to ensure that inflation returns to our medium-term Target and to preserve the smooth functioning of monetary policy transmission and we are now ready to take your questions thank you Madame lagard and the first question goes to aneta viov cmbc aneta please thank you very much president lagar thank you very much for taking my question my first one would be like a general one because clearly um cutting rates at the same time with hiking the inflation forecast needs perhaps a little bit more explanation um and also the question whether you perhaps pre pre-committed yourself too early to that cut the second one is um the market currently is expecting some 65 basis points in cut during the course of this year is the market right or about right thank you well thank you so much for your opening question and let me take this opportunity to give you a bit of an opening answer and uh tell you um what um what we what we did this morning and what happened as a preamble to this morning's decision but let me first tell you that we started our meeting this morning uh by paying tribute uh to the many men and women who sacrificed their lives on the beach of Normandy today which is the 80th anniversary of dday and we paid tribute to those sacrifices and those of many others because it enabled us to build what we have built uh to disagree in a very civilized way uh to have uh very uh harmonious and congenial decisions amongst 20 different Nationals representing their respective National central banks amongst our governing Council and it was perfectly appropriate and fitting to do so then we decided to cut and we did so because overall our confidence in the path ahead because we have to be forward looking has been increasing over the last months so let me explain to you why our confidence has increased in the path ahead and I will take you back a little bit because this is after all the first time in many years that we make that kind of decision and these things do not happen in a vacuum so I'll take you back a little bit to our monetary policy cycle to remind you that we have had two successive phases and we have made that decision so the first phases as you will remember was a phase of very robust uh and Rapid tightening we tightened by 450 basis points between July uh 22 and September 23 then we moved into a phase of holding from September 23 up until today and if I look back and we look back at those phases during each of those phases we divided inflation by half so if you look at the peak of inflation October 22 we were at 10 10.6 double digit inflation on average now fast forward September 23 we are at 5.2 fast forward to today we are at 2.6 so at each and every step of the way when we reassess and decided to move in a different direction we had halfed inflation I think the second element that we took very much into account was the reliability and the strength of our projections and there is one particular line of projections which to many of us was relevant if you look at q425 projections you look at September you look at December you look at March you look at June there's a variation between those projections of 0.1 so it's either two or 1.9 or two or 1.9 or two and it's on the basis of this reliability and solidity and and yeah robustness of those projections that we have made that decision to actually cut but we have done that and I will I'm sure that you will be asking you know what about next time yeah and I will invariably tell you the same thing which is what is included in the monetary policy statement we shall be da dat dependent and we shall decide meeting by meeting but to say that is probably not enough and how we collect data matters but what is also more important is how do we analyze the data and I'm not only specifically pointing at one set of data all the data that we get we're looking at it under the prism of our three criterias and you will have noticed that I have repeated three times I think in this monetary policy statement the three criterias which are the inflation outlook on the basis of the financial and economic data that we we we uh collect it's the underlying inflation and it's the transmission of monetary policy so it's under the prism of these three criteria that we analyze all the data that we have available and we need to have those data we need to have enough of those data to make a relevant and appropriate analysis that took us this time around to this decision thank you what was your second question oh well you know Market markets do What markets have to do and we do what we have to do thank you Madame lagard the next question goes to Valentina Z or FR Valentina please wait there's a microphone so where are you here can hello hello thank you for taking my question um because you you just mentioned that um you need enough data to to take your decisions and uh back in March she said the you uh will not a little more by April and a lot more by June are we in a similar situation where um only a little more will be known by the next meeting and a lot more by the one after that and and more broadly on on this topic um some argue that um um some of your meetings coincide with the release of of key indicators and and therefore that those um policy meetings are more important you you what do you think of this view do you share it thank you well thank yeah thank you very much you you are correct that there is not perfect synchronicity between our meetings and our decisions and the publication of particular data I'm thinking of one particular data that will come U for publication tomorrow which is the uh compensation per employee for q1 which obviously is relevant because we look very carefully at at wages uh from all possible angles of analysis and CPE is is um is a relevant point it's not the only one uh wages is is an important um field of data that we need to analyze but CP is one of them and and it's only being published tomorrow so what we try to do that's just to take you a little bit behind the scene is we collect as many data as is available and at the moment we have about 15 countries or so and a very large portion of of the Euro area economy and we we calculate what is the likelihood of that number to better assess and test uh our resolve and and that's what we that's what we have to do when there is no perfect synchronicity between the uh between the date of publication which are set and the date of our monetary policy meetings which are also set and they they're not you know coinciding um necessarily all the time you also asked me the question of you know how what kind of data are we talking about first of all it is data second it is enough data so that the analysis that we conduct under the three criteria that I have mentioned can actually be relevant so I'm not going to tell you today nor at any point in time until much later on in the summer um whether we do this now or do we do something else at another point in time the only thing I'm telling you is that we need sufficient data and data comes in gradually over the course of time sufficient data to actually corroborate The View that we have that the disinflationary path is being confirmed and warrants further decisions thank you Madame lagard and the next question goes to mark schz of Bloomberg Mark please yes thanks for taking my questions um you mentioned the different phases the ECB went through with the holding phase recently and with the cut today are we entering the dialing back phase you mentioned in your March speech at the ECB watches conference so should we expect a series of rate Cuts or could it also be a case that this one is a oneandone um and the second one um your your Chief Economist recently said that the uh that interest rates need to remain restrictive this year but the that the ECU wants to remove the top level of restriction um what does that mean how much can the ECB cut interest rates before they are not longer sufficiently restrictive thanks well first of all thank you for reading my speech or for having been in the room uh that was The Watcher speech in which you know in a in a sort of perspective but also I wouldn't Elevate myself to that level but in a in a vaguely Academic Way uh I tentatively uh analyzed the phases that we had gone through and anticipated what could come next are we today moving in into a a dialing back phase I wouldn't volunteer that because as I said we are making a decision on the basis of the confidence that we have that we are on a path but we will need at each and every point in time in the course of the next few months we will need data and more data and Analysis of those data to constantly confirm that we are on on this disinflationary path so we know the destination we know the direction that we are taking we know the methodology that we will apply uh we know the volume of multiple data that we should be receiving and that will accumulate and corroborate hopefully uh but I cannot confirm that it is the dialing Pro process that is underway there's a strong likelihood but it will be data dependent and what is very uncertain is the speed at which we travel and the time that it will take again this will be determined by the data that we receive now you you ask me about the restrictiveness we are currently restrictive even after this 25 basis point Cuts as you well know and we were today more restrictive in real interest rate terms than we were back uh in September so what we're doing here as indicated by our chief Economist Philip Lane is removing a degree of restriction we are moderating the level of restriction that applies that's exactly what we are doing at the the moment how long will that take as I said I cannot tell you now at what speed which will it will it uh happen I cannot tell you now either it will be delivered by the data I'm sure that you will hear some of my excellent colleagues take their view you know it will take such time it will move at such speed I would caution against any such conclusion for one simple reason we know the path we are in we are on but we also know that there will be other bumps on the road I said last time when we were together that we were traveling that Journey on a road that was downward towards the 2% but that there would be bumps on the road there are bumps that we can more or less predict that we can anticipate I mean base effects are you know case in point but there are bumps on the road that can come as a surprise uh there are bombs on the road that we can anticipate but the magnitude of which we are not totally confident about you know you wages is another case in point depending on which country you look at depending on what Collective Agreement you look at they can be a massive amount of catching up front-loaded agreement to increase wages and then it fades away so all these things have indos syncratic characteristics that will actually either increase reduce or deliver the same level of bumps that that we are considering but we know it's going to be a bumpy road road let's face it the next few months will continue to be uh to be bumpy we know that the next question goes to Martin Arnold of the financial times Martin please thank you very much uh president lagard two questions if I may firstly you talked about the importance of the data and you had stressed before this meeting the importance of the first quarter data in particularly the wage data uh and that you'd hope to see a moderation there you didn't see a moderation you saw an acceleration in the wage data uh back to almost a record high so can you explain why what you saw was still enough to allow you to cut and secondly do you you've predicted that there will be a moderation in wages in the Euro Zone later this year do you need to see that moderation actually happen before you can cut again thank you thank you very much for your two questions so again what we wanted before making that decision was collectively to uh increase our confidence level that the path ahead was on its disinflationary uh Rhythm that uh we needed in order to make our decision and to do that we looked back at the last time uh we decided to hold which was in September and we assessed the journey from September 23 up until now and as I just said in the previous answer there are bumps on this road that we are traveling with more confidence that the disinflationary path is actually materializing we will be looking at multiple data not only wages but you're quite right to take me back to wages because wages matter enormously in a tight labor market when it comes to services and we know that services are an important element of uh the items in the index which have been rising the last service number that we had was 3.7 that was back in April went up to 4.1 in May after a series of fours in uh March February January before that and what's at the root of this uh increase in service prices is predominantly wages so what happened to wages uh in the last few months first of all there has been Divergence between countries so we really looked under the Bonnet of wages and we looked under the Bonnet of countries because some of the decisions that were made were country specific I'll take one example Germany Germany because in Germany most of those Collective Agreement are negotiated on a tri-annual every 3 years and to give you a more specific example public service agreement actually happened in 24 and has now compensated the Lost purchasing power since 21 which is when the last agreement was reached in the public service so you can imagine that an agreement that is cut in 24 that covers 21 22 23 is obviously going to be very sizable and it was in the 12% we have the same exactly the same story for the retail sector which is quite significant where again an agreement has been reached now which is a Novation compared with 3 years ago so then we have to analyze what's underneath there is the catching up frontloading is it also is it also accounting for future years it's not too clear clear in the public service but it's very clear in the retail sector agreement so that leads us to assume that wages will continue to remain elevated if you look at negotiated wages CP q1 they were at 4.7 if you look at compensation per employee based on what we can calculate on the basis of 15 countries 4.7% compared with 4. five for negotiated wage in Q4 4.7 same stabilization on the compensation for EMP per employee in Q4 so we have elevated levels tentative stabilization and then we look at our third indicator which is the wage tracker which includes seven of the Euro area countries including the largest one so we cover a very large chunk of uh the European economic activity and labor market markets and what we what that wage tracker tells us is that while still elevated for the stock of agre of U agreement and various Accords that are recorded by the wage tracker this is still elevated that's the stock when we look at the flow what is coming in now we are seeing a decline in the wage uh growth so it's it's not an easy matter wages because it is peculiar it includes also lots and lots of elements you have the catching up you have the what we call the wage drift which includes a lot of very specific uh items including Social Security contributions including uh overtime including differential between low and high paid employees and all the rest of it so we try to really combine and confront all this data all this information to analyze it and that leads us to the conclusion that while still elevated no question about that we are seeing those wages on a declining path and that will particularly be the case in 25 because the 12% decided in 24 are not going to be producing the same impact in 25 and that is I think even you know comforted by the fact that this particular projection exercise is checked and crosschecked and produced jointly by the uh staff of the ECB and the staff of the naal central banks which have really they they fingers on the pulse of those Collective Agreement and compensation per employees the second part of your question was how long will it take or how much more do you see um you know we we are we are going to look at data as they come in on wages and profits it's not a it's not a monthly exercise it comes at a at a different interval and we will have to you know test our assumption of declining wages towards the end of 24 and seriously uh less elevated wages in 25 in the course of the next few uh weeks and months thank you president and the next question goes to syia bson of the Italian News Channel class CNBC syvia please thank you very much good afternoon president good afternoon vice president uh so following up on a previous question given that you will need data and more data do you think that projection route meeting of the governing council could be more suitable for interest rate decision given that you will have also forecast available and the second question is how divided is the governing Council over the Future Part of interest rate a third one would be if it was a unanimous decision today but thank you very much you can't go more than two but okay I'll take the I'll take the three so I'll I'll start with the third one was it a unanimous decision yes but for one Governor okay so I leave it to you sagasti to identify who it is [Music] um were we divided as far as the path ahead is concerned we were all absolutely United to agree that our path would be data dependent that we would decide meeting by meeting and uh there was absolutely no dis sent on that front we also confirmed that our criterias the three that I have mentioned inflation Outlook underlying inflation strength of monetary policy transmission would continue to drive our analysis of data going forward I can't remember what your first question was you'll have to remind me it was about given d need data and more data if do you think that projection round meetings of the governing council could be more suitable for interest rate decision given that you will have also forecasts available thank you well first of all those are not our projection those are the projections of stuff and it's obvious that projections produced by staff on a regular basis are very informative go deep into uh the data that we receive analyze at length produces scenarios analysis sensitivity analysis and that this is very helpful for us to make decisions but that doesn't mean to say and I would not say that now uh that we would only decide at the time of projection meetings because we have to be data dependent at all times but obviously we have more data when we have projection meetings thank you Madame lagard and the next question goes to Claus ran yakish of uh the high a television close L please thank you good afternoon Mr President thank you for taking my questions um some months ago you were standing at this location promising the people in the Euro Zone that the governing council is determined to break the neck of inflation um would you say that the neck is being broken man could have some doubts seeing the current data and also your projections so how is The View on that and the second connected with this we have heard a lot of criticism already before this session and a lot of doubts whether this raight cut is really at the right point because some people are doubting that inflation indeed is on the right track we now have started the voting for the European Parliament and as you know there's a lot of criticism of European institutions is is it really the right point of time to take these decisions when some people may now get the impression that the ECB doesn't take the combat of inflation seriously enough anymore thank you well thank you for your question and I can assure you that we take the fight against inflation extremely seriously and if there is one thing that I have learned in this job is that we have to be persistent we have to be determined we have to be data dependent but we cannot give up on the objective and our objective is to tame inflation and to bring prices back to bring inflation back to 2% in the medium term so let there be no doubt about our determination to tame inflation and to restore price stability and I will mention three numbers for you because I think that you know in my sleepless nights I try to have that in the back of my mind and there's that little voice that says carry on carry on October 22 inflation on average in the Euro area 10.6% September 23 less than a year later inflation 5.2% that's the reading of August because we made the decision in September today 2.6% each and every step of the way we divided inflation by two I don't want to divide the next inflation by two because if we divide 2.6 by 2 we have 1.3 our commitment is 2% we don't want to go there no but as is very clearly stated in the monetary policy statement we are moderating our restrictive stance it is still restrictive and we will continue to be restrictive as long as necessary to bring inflation to 2% in a timely manner have no doubt about that thank you thank you and the next question goes to Nua Sal fil of el over there hello thank you H what do you think about the level of con concentration in Spanish Banks and what could happen with this if beua is successful in his offer for sabadel it could be a problem for competence or maybe for the financial stability thank you thank you so much is somebody far more competent than me on that one vice president well good good afternoon well I think that we have been crystal clear with respect to the you know this kind of situations we we do not elaborate we do not comment on transactions deals that have not been finalized yet um our you know our our party line has been quite clear uh we will make an assessment about any kind of transaction that implies mergers uh the purchase of stakes of banks but uh you know this assessment will be based on Prudential and solvency issues that's uh What uh I can say now and uh well we will see you know the outcome at the end thank you vice president and the next question goes to Santi pinol of m& Santi please here good afternoon president lagard afterno so my question is in the moment that we are right now uh can you be now more clear in the Assumption where the neutral rate is the arstar currently and the second question uh the governor that wasn't on board on the cat was looking for a bigger cut or an change rate cut like living keeping on hold and what was the argument if you can tell us something about the answer to that question is no because that's the privacy of the deliberation to the extent that they relate to one particular person but I'm sure you will identify that person quickly and we'll be able to get that information from him now on more seriously on on the neutral rate you know that I have refrained uh systematically from um airing towards a particular number or identifying um a neutral rate or a range around the neutral rate I will simply say this um is that if it has increased compared to where it was before covid we also know that we are far away from neutral rate now and by moving from 4% % to 375% on the dfr we are not close to the neutral rate so we still have a way to go thank you very much and the next question goes to the lady in the pink um uh oh in the pink jacket please I won a lottery so thank you uh I'm Silvana SC I'm coming GR from C Croatia uh the latest member of uh Euro zone so I was wondering uh since we are still having the um highest rate of inflation uh in May um uh 4.3 uh behind Belgian second uh but on the other side we have the biggest growth uh in Euro Zone uh uh in last quarter it's 3.9 so are we in Risk because of this DEC decision of um today um and what do you expect effect how it's hard to really make a decision that affects all these countries in Euro Zone and you expect you know to inflation to to to really go down thank you well that's well first of all welcome uh to this to this circle and we're very happy that Croatia has joined and has extended the circle to 20 um your question is was you know similar to the ones that we had when some of the Baltic states in particular uh were cruising at a much higher uh interest rates than the average in the uh in the Euro area and it's the whole issue of divergences that we have uh amongst amongst ourselves because we have different fundamentals because we uh have uh different Heritage because of different uh structural rigidities as well and uh we have from you know an ECB standpoint we have to look at Euro are data and we cannot go down into the specificities we have to be mindful of the Divergence and we do publish um we will be publishing soon actually a convergence report that will uh identify the these divergences and and how close uh countries are are getting we very much uh believe uh that inflation will come down we'll continue this disinflationary we will continue this disinflationary process and that that will apply to all member states but again the pace uh the you know consistency between countries is always going to be an issue I hope it's not too big an issue and obviously to have growth and strong demand has its disadvantages disadvantages as well as uh benefits thank you thank you and the last question to the today goes to Yan malen of plateau here in the front row hello Madame lagard thank you for the opportunity um the French President Emmanuel maon has uh um proposed to extend the Mandate of the ECB to um economic growth and climate protection what's your view on that and I would be curious on your VI your view uh also on the proposal to publish um dotplot from Isabel would would you support this idea or not thank you well thank you for your two questions um you know at the European Central Bank we have a very clear mandate and that mandate is enshrined in the treaty and that mandate is a focus on delivering price stability we believe that that price stability mandate provides solid guideposts and boundaries for our monetary policy strategy we don't see a need nor do we have the capacity or the competence to change that I would also observe that providing price stability and giving predictability to sustainable investment is certainly one of the various contribut ions that we can make in relation to the fight against climate change we have different uh set of actions from risk management to better um modeling and including climate change risks and mitigation measures in in our work but providing price stability is certainly a good way to tell those investors in sustainable projects you have price stability and the ECB will be here to guarantee that that prices are stable there's nothing like you know waves of inflation to discourage uh investment that require a long-term perspective and a later return on invest on investment um you know the the the dotplot uh mechanism is is an interesting um concept and I think I would leave it at that that brings our press conference to an end thank you very much for following our next press conference is on 18th of July and up until then all the best thank you have a good summer e for