Facing unease over the spread of a more-contagious variant of the coronavirus, the European Central Bank said it would maintain its stimulus in the form of ultra-low interest rates until inflation “durably” reaches its 2% target, AP reports.

The European Central Bank has welcomed the rise in nominal bond yields, Reuters reported. The institution commented that the increase is a sign for working anti-crisis measures. The surge in yields comes in time with rising inflation.

Recession is strongly advancing in the Eurozone as ECB figures showed a slowing pace in corporate lending and financing, Reuters reported. The big story behind this phenomenon goes back to 2020. In the peak times of pandemic lots of European companies rushed to secure funds to offset the expected lowdown. The slowdown came and still goes on but the majority of firms have already reached their credit limits and can not afford more loans.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has posted a €1.6 billion profit for 2020, down from €2.4 billion in 2019, the bank said in a statement. The €722 million decrease compared to the previous year was mainly due to lower net interest income on foreign reserve assets and on securities held for monetary policy purposes. Following a decision by the Governing Council, there was also a transfer of €48 million to the ECB’s provision for financial risks, which reduced the ECB’s profit by an equivalent amount.

The EU’s recent proposals to strengthen its economic sovereignty and the international role of the euro are a step in the right direction but must be followed up by concerted action from member states to expand the eurozone economy as a whole, and its trading reach. Without greater international use of the euro, the Union’s strategic autonomy will be considerably limited.

Covid-19 pandemic has melted some capital buffers of nine euro zone banks, the European Central Bank said. The monitored lenders were forced to spend some of their stashed funds to offset fallout of the coronavirus outbreak, the ECB said on Thursday.

The European Central Bank is in the process of setting up a climate change centre to coordinate the bank’s thinking on how to best incorporate climate issues into monetary policy and banking supervision, ECB President Christine Lagarde announced today.

The European Central Bank left its monetary policy on hold on Thursday after sizing up the economic fallout from the coronavirus crisis.

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said she remained cautiously optimistic about EU’s potential to return to growth in the second quarter of 2021. Lagarde said that Europe possesses all needed tools to secure economic rebound.

Bulgaria and Croatia must make significant progress in terms of quality of institutions and governance. This was noted in a European Central Bank (ECB) piece on the two countries that last year joined the exchange rate mechanism ERM II, also known as “the Eurozone's waiting room”.