ECB member says stimulus package could come this month if needed

François Villeroy de Galhau, France’s central bank governor and a member of the Governing Council at the ECB, hasn’t ruled out more stimulus for the euro zone coming as early as this summer, ahead of Christine Lagarde’s installment as the new president of the European Central Bank (ECB).

“If we speak about monetary policy we have several Governing Councils to come, in the next month, including with Mario Draghi. And if and when needed, there must be no doubt about our determination to act and our capacity to act,” he told.

“We look at the markets, but we are not market dependent, we are data dependent. And if we look at the economic signals there is a continuing slowdown but there also significant wage increases ... significant job creation on both sides of the Atlantic. So let us wait for our next Governing Council, and there are several to come, to assess the data and then to decide.”

When asked about the likelihood that more stimulus would be announced in December, when the central bank releases new economic projections, he reiterated there were many meetings before then.