Minutes of the European Central Bank meeting: Policy stance is favorable, supporting the retention of ample flexibility in policy.

The European Central Bank announced on January 22nd that the minutes of the December meeting showed that ECB officials were generally satisfied with the current policy stance in December, but still supported maintaining flexibility on interest rates. Some officials believed that given inflation close to the 2% target and expected to remain near that target during the policy horizon, "keeping interest rates stable for an extended period" was feasible.