ECB to keep monetary options open – Villeroy

PARIS (Reuters) – The ECB will prize maintaining “optionality” in its monetary policy going forward, ECB policymaker and French central bank head Francois Villeroy de Galhau said in an interview with financial daily Les Echos published on Sunday.

Leaving policymakers plenty of flexibility in the face of risks from new COVID variants and supply-chain pressures, the ECB said on Thursday it would end emergency bond buys next March but temporarily double the pace of its longer-running Asset Purchase Programme (APP) to ease the transition.

“The most-used word in our discussions (on Thursday) was ‘optionality’. This is the capacity, in this uncertain period, to adjust our monetary policy at any time depending on real data as observed,” Villeroy said.

(Reporting by Leigh Thomas; editing by GV De Clercq and Jason Neely)