ECB monetary policy meeting preview

At the December monetary policy meeting, the ECB began to apply its exit strategy from non-conventional lending measures, indicating that the December LTRO would have been the last one and that the last 6m LTRO shall be in March. However, ECB President Trichet underlined that the decision on non-conventional lending measures does not imply anything with respect to the Refi rate perspective. Thursday's ECB monetary policy meeting promises nothing particularly newsworthy: the ECB is widely forecasted to leave the rate unchanged at 1% with no further decisions on QE exit strategy on the cards. We estimate that the Refi rate will stay unchanged at least until the end of H1 ’10, and our base scenario is for the rate to end up at 1.5% in 2010. Even though the new ECB projections on economic growth and inflation are in line with a rising Refi rate (to 2% by the end of 2010), we do not expect the ECB to tighten monetary policy unless the Fed implements an exit strategy as this would strengthen the Euro against the US Dollar.